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Updated: June 13, 2025
All good things have to come to an end and after two weeks we caught the train back to Ahwaz and thence to Shaiba. For entertainment we had radio programs relayed from Britain but we also picked up programs emanating from Ahwaz which was under American control. Rum and Coca Cola sung by The Andrews Sisters was pounded out at least three times daily.
In the early days of the campaign, at the battle of Shaiba Bund, a friendly mirage saved the British forces from what would have proved a very serious defeat. Suleiman Askari was commanding the Turkish forces, and things were faring badly with the British, when of a sudden to their amazement they found that the Turks were in full retreat.
The local Turks were weak in numbers and equipment, and distance removed them from the stimulus of Enver's energy and German organization. It was not until April 1915 that an effective reaction to the British advance was attempted. Then the Turks and Arabs concerted a movement against the whole line stretching round from Ahwaz within the Persian frontier to Shaiba south-west of Basra.
For this reason it was decided to interpose No.5 Advanced Base Workshops between Shaiba and the advancing Germans. That's why I was there. Fortunately the German armies were halted at El Alamein and Stalingrad so the personnel of No.5 ABW were later relocated.
The real attack was on Shaiba, and the battle lasted from 12 to 15 April. The Turks were completely defeated, with some 6000 casualties; but the most important effect was to convert the Arabs into our allies. The advantage was pressed in June, and on the 3rd Amara was captured seventy-five miles to the north of Kurna.
During the next two years I was twice detached from Shaiba for short periods. First of all I was posted to Baghdad where I was billeted in a camp but by day I was employed in a large private house in Mansoor Street. Military and local civilian staff worked there.
As soon as the armies were in sight of each other, three champions came out from among the idolaters, Otha son of Rabia, his brother Shaiba, and Al Walid son of Otha; against the first of these, the prophet sent Obeidah son of Hareth, Hamza against the second, and Ali against the third: Hamza and Ali slew each his man and then went to the assistance of Obeidah, and having killed his adversary, brought off Obeidah, who, however, soon after died of a wound in his foot.
No.2 Base Workshops was in that general vicinity but as usual it was in the wide open spaces; it was similar to Shaiba in size and content and served the same purpose. On one of my trips to Cairo I passed through the town or was it too small to be so called and I paused at the cemetery where the British dead of that battle were buried and my thoughts went back to my father's tales.
There were a dozen or so bell tents including ours set in the middle of nothingness, flat vacant desert all around us; true there was some sign of activity a quarter of a mile away that turned out to be the local brickworks but otherwise nothing. We asked the name of this God-forsaken spot and were told Shaiba. It was still May and the days were getting hotter.
A number of lively skirmishes followed, and then the serious attack against Shaiba. The Turkish army numbered about eighteen thousand men, of whom eleven thousand were regulars. The fighting lasted for several days, the Turks being reinforced. On the 14th of April, however, the English attacked in turn and put the whole enemy force to flight.
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