'Military Lessons of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936' [‎108r] (220/294)

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when attention was turned more to troops in the process of occupying or
evacuating pacq^aets. But perhaps the chief of all enemy characteristics
was .he universal reluctance to come v/ithin close quarters of their
adversaries, the ultimate objective of any attack being little more
than to get within close enough range for indifferent fire to be
effective.
The Problem of bringing the Bands to a ction
This was of course the crux of the whole matter, and it bristled
with difficulties. -ot only was it necessary to force an enemy to
fight whose one ambition was to run away, but he had to be brought to
action early enough in the day for the attack to be pressed home before
darkness gave him his chance to escape. There were three chief methods
by which this might be achieved.
The first method was to draw him from his lair by means of a
tempting bait onto ground where troops and aircraft could make use of
their mobility to concentrate superior force before he could retreat. The
bait was generally a road convoy of civilian vehicles with a small
escort, or sometimes a telephone repair gang. In the background were
the air and land striking forces standing by at suitable centres ready
to rush out in answer to an XX or GG call in the manner previously
described.
The second method consisted of little more than ’’trailing the coat”
in the hopes that someone would tread on it and start a fight. Under
this heading came "searches” and "drives” of the type of Operation X,
which were also of use for showing the flag. The best procedure
was probably to send columns to occupy villages and secure water
supplies with a view to denying them to the bands while at the same
time offering some sort of backing to villages which had suffered from
terrorism and which might be inclined to produce information if pro
tected from reprisals. It must be admitted however that "coat-trail
ing” methods seldom induced the bands to fight at all and in any case
gave them a free choice as to the time and place for any action.
Lastly there was the deliberate operation, based upon good informa
tion, which was usually undertaken with the ooject of surrounding a
band and destroying it completely. It was of course* only possible
to attempt this when really good information could be obtained, and
this was all too rare and in fact almost unknown until the last stages
of the rebellion. If the information was good the action ^/as usually
decisive, and it may fairly be said that once the enem^ had been
brought to battle early in the day no difficulty was ever experienced
in inflicting upon him a severe defeat.
The conduct of offensive action against the ra nds
Success usually depended upon completing a successful envelopment
of the enemy, and to accomplish this it was essential^ that once contact
had been gained it should never be lost. Once lost it was usually los
for good, and to keep contact it was necessary to keep go in S after dar
with a view to continuing the action in the morning. ^nis was selaom
achieved in 1936, owing to the fact that most ot the ^ 0C >P S ^re
reinforcements unfamiliar with the lie of tie ana an were ^
equipped with pack transport, which would have made them Ics. depend
ent upon their motor transport which too °f t ? n , the
neighbourhood of the main roads and prevented
eremv to his lair. In the attack it paid to go m with the oayonet
enemy to nis ±a , 200 yar a s; by the time tms stage
once the range had closoa to aooux * 2 «« A ir u. hpr rf .cn 3 t-
had hppn reached few Arabs were ever inclined .o off or further res s ■
had been reacnea nri -, v too ready to surrender rather than risk a
ance and were usually only '-oo
fight at close quarters.