'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎99r] (202/294)

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Area " Searc hes"
The sear ones of areas — mostly in the hill country — presented
rather more dixficulty than those of villages and produced even less
material results. They had a certain moral value, hut v/ere more often
apt to drive armed bands to ground rather than force them to fight.
Unless surprise was achieved it was so easy for rebels to hide their
arms for the moment and pose as innocent citizens, that the bands were
only likely to light if their prestige had reached such a very low ebb
locally that no other course was left to them. This however was rarely
the case as most Arabs readily appreciated when discretion was the better
part of valour. The element of surprise was all the more difficult to
obtain on account of the fact that area searches v/ere only permitted
after due warning had been given to the district administration and the
police. The value of area searches therefore lay more in their moral
effect - which sometimes resulted in bringing in better information from
villages which had been intimidated and robbed - than in any material
gains.
These searches were conducted almost exactly on the lines of " Imperial
Policing, 195 4", a cordon being formed to isolate the area while infantry
columns moved slowly across it searching caves, hilltops and villages
enroute, a slow tedious and extremely tiring procedure. Progress was
so slow in the very difficult hill country that care was necessary to
ensure that the depth of the drive was not beyond the physical capabili
ties of the troops. An advance of ten miles in a single day was
certainly the maximum which could be expected if caves and other hiding
places were to be combed out. As regards frontages it is difficult to
give any guide as of course they varied greatly on different sorts of
ground and as it was seldom possible in Palestine to have troops as thick
on the ground as might be wished. The ideal is probably not less than
six to ten yards to a man, though admittedly this is seldom possible to
ensure. In the absence of horsed cavalry drives had to be carried out
almost entirely by infantry on foot moving on a wide front while the more
mobile troops held the cordon.
Resources were rarely sufficient to estaolish a standing cordon round
the area, so that cordons usually took the form of a few posts at central
points linked together by intensive patrolling of mobile troops. -for
this purpose main roads v/ere usually chosen fo r the line ci the cordon,
as the road picquets formed a useful framework on which to base it. <
On occasions the River Jordan was used for the purpose with i.u.F.i?.
cavalry patrolling the banks betv/een infantry posts at the fords. A
line of roads however offered a better chance of obtaining surprise,
as troops in M.T. could move quickly and simultaneousl.v from suywial
directions to their places in the cordon* To establish an efficient
cordon for day and night purposes it was found that twenty yards to a
man was a suitable frontage for a standing cordon of infantry, whereas
A.F.V's. used on a moving cordon were effective on a front which ^ not
exceed half a mile per vehicle. Local restrictions on opening
made the work of cordon troops most difficult, though tho . c. ^u^on
of a curfew zone on the roads used as the cordon Hue was a nc -P* ^
machine-guns of A.F.V’s. wore useful for checking Cr ?^..
line, since bursts of fire could bo put down in fron o p^op e
to cross who might at first fail to halt when challengea owing o
ignorance or an innocent tendency to run out of she^i righ • w
generally necessary to establish the cordon in theaar >. i-n _ ° ^
allow the longest possible period of daylight for the driving operations.
In order to illustrate a typical area search x,. P.deotino c.
description is given below of "OperaU^ contained
the biggest offensive operation undei tal<en i. - _
many features familiar to most operations of that periou.