Almost a decade ago, I wrote an article for “Miniature Wargames” on the subject of a British convoy under attack along the North West Frontier in the 1930’s. Since then I’ve steadily acquired information about ‘convoy raids’ since they provide ample opportunity for a single player game-and can be expanded into a multi-player version almost at will. This historical scenario derives from an article entitled “The British in Jenin” by Gordon Carera in ‘History Today’ Vol 52 No.7; and the game developed from it is, shall we say, more unusual than many players will have encountered.
Back in the 1930’s Palestine was a cauldron of undeclared war. The League of Nations despaired in lengthy reports, which outlined attacks by Arabs on Jews, and vice versa. The Arabs were also in conflict with the British Government, and its Mandate administration. Many attacks were carried out by small groups of armed villagers, operating at night against British Palestine Police outposts for arms and against fortified Jewish villages. The British countered with the nocturnal activities of Orde Wingate’s ‘Zionists’. This was a nasty little war.
On one day alone in January 1938, some 30 Arab ‘bandits’, as the British termed them, and 2 British infantrymen were killed in one village alone. Total casualties for that year were 503 Arabs-all ‘bandits’ irrespective of age or condition; 255 Jews, rarely described otherwise, and 77 British soldiers, Policemen and officials.
In early March of 1938, an armed band of around 250-300 Arabs became involved in a very heavy engagement with British troops and “A udax “, “Demon” and “Gordon” bombers of the RAF, which ultimately dispersed them.
Almost half of the Arab villages in Palestine were the subject of British ‘raids’ and searches during 193 8,and in July trouble (to say the least!) flared again when a Jewish bomb killed 74 Arabs in Haifa.
British convoys were favoured targets for the Arabs in 1938, as they were for the Jews in 1946. Few British military and police vehicles could move without the support of mg equipped lorries and armoured cars. Mines and snipers were regularly encountered.
Against the threat of the mine, British troops developed the concept of the ‘minesweeping taxi’-an interesting tactic later refined and used extensively by the Wehrmacht in Occupied France, Belgium and Holland c 1943/44.
Any military convoy, which would inevitably include a Rolls Royce armoured car at front and rear, with Lewis and Vickers machinegun (mg) trucks scattered throughout and an infantry escort mounted on trucks spread through the column, was also escorted over the hills between the Jordan valley and the coastal plains by at least one RAF plane; but convoys had one further element.
At random from the streets of Haifa or Jerusalem, the British would commandeer a string of the ancient motor taxis, which the Arabs owned, along with their drivers and not infrequently the Arab passengers too! As the convoy assembled, these taxis were searched and placed at the front of the column and given the opportunity to detonate any mine laid along the road during the night in the hope of destroying a British lorry or armoured car. It worked and did as the British reports said ‘reduce landmine casualties’ at least as far as the British were concerned. Many Arabs died in this way and in fact the attacks on convoys did not end with the stratagem, the snipers merely became better shots.
One such column and a very vulnerable one indeed, assembled on August 25th 1939.The British intended to blow up the town of Jenin (known in the Bible as Beth-Haggan) with 9,300lbs of gelignite ‘demolition to commence at 1615’. In this convoy were two Rolls Royce armoured cars (as in the diagram), a strong infantry escort, a company of Sappers and a force of Palestine Police and mg armed trucks around twenty vehicles in all. The Arab element was five ancient taxis and drivers. The RAF element was a force of light “Fairey Gordon” bombers - presumably in case the gelignite was not over effective.
The town was surrounded, the entire populace was driven off and a sizeable portion of Jenin including water supplies and ‘all official buildings’ were demolished. The RAF’s bombers were not needed and for once no taxi drivers were killed. The raid and destruction of Jenin was carried out as a standard reprisal for the murder of a British policeman in his office there by an Arab assassin, who was himself shot down on the spot.
Of course by early 1939, a massive influx of British and Empire troops to swell the garrison in the coming war subdued Arab hostility and the era of what the British Colonial Office called “Jewish Terrorism” began.
Plus ca change, eh?
Minesweeping Taxis in Palestine 1938
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