Seemingly unrecorded, this Cairo printing of Captain Lewen Francis Barrington Weldon’s (1875-1958) account precedes the first London edition by two years. A second London edition appeared in 1926.
This is a lightly edited transcript of Weldon’s journal through five years of war. In 1915, he commanded HMS Anne, a converted container ship (the Aenne Rickmers) seized in Port Said the year prior and drafted into service during the Dardanelles campaign. It accompanied two French piloted Nieuports to assess the damage of the allied bombardment of Smyrna. Other chapters include accounts of his time at Malta, Cyprus, and Egypt. However, of real interest is his account of supporting war efforts in the Hejaz:
“On January 11th we received an order to get our ’planes on board and to proceed to the Red Sea … At last we were ordered to proceed to Sherm Hanab on the Arabian coast, south of Wejj. We sailed, and a couple of days later … proceeded to Dhaba on the Arabian Coast, when we made a flight along the coast to try and locate Turkish troops.” After which, their “next duty was to reconnoitre the position of the Turkish trenches [at Wejjj] which we did without incident; and there we all lay to await the arrival of Feisal’s army.” There was some delay of the latter and so “the ships decided to do the job for themselves. Accordingly, all available men were collected … and with the help of about 400 Arabs, landed and stormed the town.” Having captured the town and taken thirty prisoners, Weldon notes that “in the evening up came Feisal, Lawrence, and about 6,000 Arabs. Of course they were too late to do any fighting, but [the army, not Lawrence of Feisal] were in heaps of time to loot.”
Exceedingly rare, not on OCLC.
