'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎74v] (153/294)

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CHAPTER 12
THE EHPLOTKEMT OF AIRCRAFT IN
CO-OPERATION WITH TROOPS
INTRODUCTORY
Once the armed band had made its appearance, there were few engage
ments in which aircraft and troops did not work together in very close
co-operation - so close in fact that "combined action" is probably a
better description. Practically every case of a successful attack on
armed rebels resulted from the combined efforts of air and land forces;
and in most of the bigger actions - and many of the smaller ones too -
the air arm provided the commander with his principal weapon of offence.
Local conditions of Ground and Policy combined to make it an especially
effective weapon in Palestine. It has been shown already how the armed
bands had always to be met on their own ground, which would usually be
in difficult mountain districts where the mobility of all land forces
was reduced to the minimum and where aircraft alone could operate with
out this serious handicap. Policy too, being dictated by civil and not
purely military needs, restricted the employment of land forces on
offensive duties. Policy required that the life of the country in its
widest sense should be protected, and since this was naturally more a
task for the man on the ground the greater part of the land forces was
only too often committed to it. So that when it came to striking at
the enemy in the hills it was usually upon the bombs and guns of his
aircraft that the commander would rely for a concentration of force at
the decisive point. The fact that in some months more than 50 /j of
enemy casualties resulted from air action bears witness to their effect.
As often as not it would be the troops who would find the enemy, they
too would do their part in the striking, and to them would fall the
task of the pursuit and "clearing-up" which completed a successful
action. But it was the offensive value of aircraft working with troops
under the conditions which prevailed which provided one of the chief
lessons oi the operations. For this reason it is proposed to deal in
some detail with their employment on these duties. The chapter has
been arranged to show first the difficulties which confronted the airmen
and their methods of overcoming them, then the various means adopted to
secure the closest co-operation with the troops, and lastly the ways in
which that co-operation worked out in practice.
AIR TACTICS
Topography and Policy affected the tactics of aircraft almost as
mucin as they did tne strategy of the forces in general. The airman had
to find his enemy in precipitous country where cover from rocks and olive
grovoo abounded, had then to identify him - amid a million similarly-
clad inhabitants - as a rebel engaged in nefarious activity, and finally
haa to engage^him in strict accordance with a precise and complicated
set of rules dictated by Policy and varied with bewildering frequency.
Ada uo all this the natural difficulties of flying - and especially low-
-lymg - amid mountains, and the constant hazard of surprisingly effec'
five rule-fire, and it will be appreciated that the task of the airman
m Palestine was far from being an easy one.
l ne ^ ie country and the necessity for careful indenti-
fication made low flying imperative, and experience showed that 500 feet
was tne maximum height for reconnoitring aircraft to fly if useful results
were to be obtained. Such conditions naturally exposed aircraft to