Page 72 - DILMUN 12

BAHRAIN IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Robin Bidwell

Immediately after Great Britain had declared war upon Hitler’s Germany H.H. Shaykh
Hamad b. Isa sent the following telegram to the King - Emperor “For nearly a century the
Khalifa Shaykhs of Bahrain have been on terms of friendship with the British Government...
Our sympathies in this war which is now being waged against the evil forces of Nazism arc with
Great Britain. If we possessed an army we would offer it to the British Government”. He also
sent a cheque for £30,000 which his Adviser Charles Bclgrave thought over-generous, to help
the British war effort. Two months later during the‘Id al-Fitr ceremonies the Shaykh said that
all Muslims should support the Allies, an important pronouncement at a time when Mussolini,
styling himself “the new Caliph Omar” and “the Protector of Islam” had agents intriguing
against the British in the Yemen and in Saudi Arabia. Shortly afterwards the Shaykh told his
people that he had had a dream in which he had seen himself sending a telegram to congratu­
late George VI upon his victory at the end of the war. Public opinion followed his guidance and
throughout the war the intelligence reports submitted fortnightly by the Political Agent
contain no references to any hostile activities in Bahrain more serious than listening to the
Axis radio stations which, anyway,tended to discredit themselves by such statements as “A
British Military Director has just assumed control of Bahrain”. By November the PA reported
that 15 articles supplied by himself had been printed in the local newspaper al-Bahrain. The
Indian community started a fund for war charities and in November 1940 a fund to buy fighter
aircraft for the RAF was opened, with the active support of the Ruler’s wife, Shaykha Ayisha;
by the time it closed in 1943 enough money had been raised throughout the Gulf to buy ten
fighter aircraft.

Even as fighting was starting in faraway Poland, Shaykh Khalifah, who was in charge of
public security, and Belgrave discussed defence measures and a practice was held on 1
September with a camel section sent to guard the oil field, horsemen patrolling the pipe-line
and a guard placed on the power-house. In January 1940 there was a discussion about
recruiting Baluch to guard the oil field but the idea was dropped because of the objections of
Shaykh Hamad, and no further action seems to have taken place before the entry of Italy into
the war in June, while public opinion was discussing, in the wake of Dunkirk, whether the
British might withdraw from the East. A force of 50 special policemen was raised with some
difficulty as out of the first 150 applicants, only 8 proved suitable.

Great interest was raised in Bahrain by the adventures of the Ruler’s brother, Shaykh
Muhammad who , before hostilities had opened in the Mediterranean, had embarked for
Beirut on an Italian ship from Alexandria. On the declaration of war the ship went straight to
Italy, bearing with it Shaykh Muhammad who somehow found his way to Malta which was
then being bombed six times a day by Italian aircraft. It was not until the end of July that he
managed to reach home, welcomed by the ladies hanging their brightest clothes out of the
windows and holding all entranced by his stories.

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