This seemingly idyllic and glamourous pre-war age of air travel within the British Empire would be rudely overturned by the outbreak of the Second World War. Even before this, however, Germany’s Nazi government made considerable efforts to convince the Arab peoples and their governments
where such government existed beyond direct French and British control
that Germany had no territorial ambitions in the Middle East and North Africa. After hostilities began the Nazis continued to proclaim that they and Italy would ensure Arab independence once they won the war, an unconvincing claim given Italy’s recent behavior in Libya and in the Arab world’s southern neighbor Ethiopia, then known as Abyssinia. Amongst the primary targets of Nazi and to a lesser extent Fascist propaganda was King Faruq of Egypt and those members of Egypt’s armed forces who still believed that their King could bring true independence and dignity to Egypt. How far such propaganda succeeded remains a matter of intense debate. From the outbreak of the Second World War until the close of 1940 the only Arab air forces which existed in anything more than name, those of Egypt and Iraq, contributed towards the Allied war effort. Once Italy entered the war in June 1940 the conflict entered Egyptian territory and, although the Egyptian government remained nominally neutral, the Royal Egyptian Air Force and Egyptian Army became directly involved, though largely behind the lines . AUTHORS: David Nicolle is a leading expert on the history of medieval warfare, in particular the Crusades and Middle Eastern warfare, and he is a prolific writer of books on these subjects as well as articles and magazine articles. Late Air Vice Marshal Gabr Ali Gabr PhD (EAF, ret.) served as the pilot of a De Havilland Vampire fighter jet during the Suez War, 1956. After concluding higher military education at the Air Warfare Institute in 1960, he served as an instructor in air tactics at the Air Warfare Institute in 1962-64. Between 1966-67, he was a staff officer during the June 1967 War and went on to be chief of the Operational Training Branch in 1968-73; he was also chief of of the Operations Group during the October 1973 War with Israel. After serving as an instructor in the art of operations and as the chief air force chair at High War College from 1977 until 1982, he received his PhD at Nasser High Academy in 1989. He then moved into writing and has since published seven books and dozens of studies and articles on the history of air warfare in Egypt and abroad. 110 b/w photographs, 24 colour profiles, 1 map