{"title":"Second World War","description":"\u003cp\u003eFiction and first-hand history from the forgotten campaigns of the Second World War, from the Battle of Habbaniya in Iraq to the RAF in Burma.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"1941-thirty-days-in-may","title":"1941: Thirty Days in May","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eMay 1941. Somewhere in the Iraqi desert, an RAF flying school is all that stands between Hitler and the Middle East.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBased on real events…\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen Iraqi forces loyal to a pro-Nazi coup in Baghdad surround the sleepy British base at Habbaniya and demand its surrender, the station's commander faces an impossible choice. His weapons are obsolete biplanes. His handful of pilots are raw cadets. 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This is one: based on newly discovered war diaries, \u003cem\u003eThe Big Little War\u003c\/em\u003e tells the story of how an RAF training school in ancient biplanes defeated the Iraqi army and the Luftwaffe, and why they were overlooked by history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn early 1941, RAF Habbaniya in Iraq was a quiet flying school far from the front line. This all changed when, following a German-supported Iraqi coup, 9,000 Iraqi troops marched on the camp to demand its surrender. Habbaniya was virtually defenceless, with reinforcements weeks away across the desert. Left to fend for themselves, and faced with the imminent arrival of the Luftwaffe, the camp commandant ordered a pre-emptive strike in their antiquated machines…\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOf all the battles of WW2, there has never been a more underreported campaign with such strategic significance. 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He soon grew frustrated. His brother Hugh was flying Blenheim bombers in England, while he was stuck in an Indian Army backwater. So in mid-1940 he started taking flying lessons and volunteered to join the RAF.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut there was a problem: his eyesight was less than perfect, and he had to fly with specially adapted goggles. As he recounts in these pages, he cheated on the eye test and got himself accepted for the 4th Intermediate Flight Training School at RAF Habbaniya, Iraq. As he was later to say: 'from the frying pan into the fire.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBecause although RAF Habbaniya was considered a quiet posting, far from the front line, it very soon became the front line after Rashid Ali's coup in Baghdad in April 1941. 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During the chaotic British withdrawal in early 1942, the rapidly depleted RAF units frog-leapt from one makeshift landing ground to another under constant harassment by Japanese Zeros and Navy 'O's. A year later he returned to Burma with a detachment of Hurricanes in support of the disastrous Arakan Campaign.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn between being shot down by friendly fire and flying the last Hurricane out of Burma before the advancing Japanese, Colin Dunford Wood details life in India, with a trip to Egypt just before El Alamein to train on the new Hurricane IIDs.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eColin had an extraordinary war. He was one of only two survivors of 60 Indian Army recruits who joined the RAF in WW2, where, despite his poor eyesight and having to cheat on his medical, he went on to fight in four theatres of war: the North-West Frontier, Iraq, Burma and Germany.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese diaries are a vivid portrait of war across several continents and campaigns. 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