History
Prior to the establishment of the Desert Air Force, several RAF formations operated in North Africa. On 3 September 1939, RAF Middle East Command—under Air Chief Marshal Sir William Mitchell, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Middle East—comprised four separate commands: for Egypt (designated Middle East), RAF Iraq, Mediterranean at Malta, and RAF Aden (No. 8, No. 203, and No. 94 Squadrons). Mitchell handed over to Air Vice Marshal Sir Arthur Longmore in early May 1940. When Italy declared war in June 1940, Longmore had just 29 squadrons numbering less than 300 aircraft — dispersed across the four commands detailed above.
Read more about this topic: Desert Air Force
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“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
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But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
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