Our recent activities in Afghanistan are far from new to the area as I discovered when researching the early history of R.F.C later R.A.F No 31 squadron . I found this little snippet of information .
In 1919, after quelling riots by Sikhs around Amritsar, the squadron was employed in Afghanistan where tribesmen had declared a new Jihad against the British. The squadron carried out almost daily bombing attacks, including one raid on the Afghani Amirs palace in his capital Kabul. The bombing helped to demoralise the Afghanis who sued for peace. "Peacekeeping" operations with new Bristol aircraft continued sporadically in the troubled north-west region where tribesmen continued their resistance to British rule.
The aircraft used at this time were the BE2C
And later the Bristol Fighter F2B
Tornado GR4 as used by No 31Sqn today
How sad that in 100 years life in this part of the world seems to have changed so little.
No comments:
Post a Comment