The War Diaries of Colin Dunford Wood, Volume 1: North-West Frontier, India & Iraq, 1939–41

Edited by James Dunford Wood

A unique record of two little-known campaigns.

The fight against the Fakir of Ipi, the Osama bin Laden of his day, on the North-West Frontier of India before WW2; and a rare first-hand account of the Siege and Battle of Habbaniya in Iraq in May 1941, when 39 trainee pilots and their instructors, in antique biplanes, routed 9,000 Iraqi troops and Luftwaffe reinforcements to save Britain's Middle East empire.

After graduating from Sandhurst in 1938, Colin Dunford Wood arrived in India to join the Leicestershire Regiment on the North-West Frontier in Waziristan, and when war broke out he was posted to the 13th Frontier Force Rifles in Madras. 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.

But 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.'

Because 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. Suddenly Britain's oil supply and its lines of communication were in dire peril, and all that stood between the Iraqis and their German reinforcements were 39 trainee pilots and the instructors of the flying school, in antiquated biplanes. My father was one of them. The story he tells in these pages is astonishing.

This volume ends with the final victory. Of the four Indian Army officers, including Colin, who transferred to the RAF – the 'Four Musketeers' – only two would survive the battle.