James Dunford Wood on The Big Little War

The defence of RAF Habbaniya in the Anglo-Iraqi War, where trainee pilots helped secure Britain’s vital oil lifelines, and may have had a greater impact on the wider war than is recognised.

A Load of B-S

Apr 29, 2026

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Hello James – your book, The Big Little War , was published just over three years ago. It seems apt that this month marks the 85th anniversary of the coup which led to the extraordinary events that you recount in the book, and you have a new, extended edition of the book out. Remind us of the background to the Anglo-Iraqi war.

It all started in April 1941 when an Iraqi politician named Rashid Ali staged a coup with German support and marched on an RAF training school and air base at Habbaniya, just to the west of Baghdad.

Iraq at that time was, politically, an ally of Britain’s, with an Anglophile royal family. The British had governed under a League of Nations Mandate until 1932, since when there had been a treaty of friendship between the two countries. In addition to providing the British with a crucial stepping stone in their lines of communication between India and Egypt, their two bases in Iraq also protected the oil that flowed from Basra and Kirkuk and which supplied much of Britain’s empire – including, crucially, Britain’s Mediterranean fleet and her army in North Africa. However, opposition to the British grew steadily throughout the 1930s, due in large part to Britain’s support for Jewish immigration into Palestine in the interwar years. This anti-British sentiment was encouraged by the Germans, and Iraq quickly became a hotbed of Arab resistance. We should also remember that in early 1941, it looked like Britain would lose the war. She was fighting alone. So it was in this context that a group of Arab nationalist army officers known as The Golden Square, encouraged by the Axis powers, overthrew Iraq’s Anglophile government in April 1941. Suddenly, Britain’s access to her crucial oil supplies was threatened.