'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎79r] (162/294)

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The Royal Air Force were prepared throughout to supply isolated
detachments of troops by air should the need arise, but fortunately
this was only necessary in one or two special cases. Had the weather
broken earlier however, or had operations extended on into the winter,
there is no doubt that it might often have been necessary to resort to
this method. Wriere small detachments were a long way out of reach,
such as in desert country, supply by air had the additional advantage
of doing away with any necessity for the escorting of supply columns.
Examples of air supply were afforded by the maintenance of a section of
armoured cars for three weeks in a remote desert post on the Egyptian
frontier, and the delivery of supplies by parachute to a section of
tanics in the hills near Tubas over a period of three days.
CONCLUSION
The brief descriptions which have been given in this chapter by
no means exhaust the full range of the activities of aircraft in
Palestine; and many tasks, such as the dropping of innumerable
propaganda pamphlets etc. which may not properly come under the heading
of “Co-operation with troops”, have been omitted. The main lesson
that was learnt was that there were very few actions in which either
troops or aircraft did not require the co-operation of the other to
secure the best results. The success of that co-operation in practice
was largely due to the organization of the system of XX calls, and the
working of that system in the field was pernaps the most strikLa^
feature of the entire operations. Its application to a wider spnere in
future would seem to be worthy of further examination.