When the snow began to clear from the roads, the main body of 'Dunsterforce' set out from Baghdad, reaching Hamadi and the general's advance party by the end of May, This constituted a battalion of English infantry, and included an aerial component of two Martinsyde Elephants from No. 72 squadron, and at least one R.E. 8. Over the winter, the aim of Gen. Dunstervilles northward trek ahd changed. Georgia had sought assistance from Germany, and could no longer be an object for English support. The intention now was that the North Persia Force of Gen. Dunsterville would be establishing a secure lodgement for England at the port of Baku, center of Russian oil production, one of the richest and longest established oil fields in the world.
In company with the regiment of Ossetian cossacks remaining from the departed Russian garrison, Gen. Dunsterville began an advance in force north along the road to Enzeli. This met stiff opposition from the Jangalis, who were as hostile to any English presence as they were to the Russians. After several fights in which his small aerial component provided important assistance, Gen. Dunsterville reached Enzeli, and in such force that the revolutionary committee could not resist his control of the place. Indeed, he reports in his memoir that he hanged several of them out of hand.
The situation at Baku was intricate and devious in the extreme. To the degree Baku was under the control of anyone, it was run by a Bolshevik committee ostensibly obedient to the current directive of Lenin that even the Turks were to be preferred to the English. The population of the place was largely Armenian, however, and in March of 1918 Armenian nationalists there had engaged in great massacre among its Azerbajani inhabitants. Many of the Bolsheviks were also Armenians, and knew perfectly well the consequences to themselves and their community of pressing Lenin's policy. Further, the sailors of the Caspian flotilla at Baku were Social Revolutionaries, a popular left body hostile to the Bolsheviks, and whether loyal to Lenin's directive or nationalists at heart, the Bolshevik committee wished this threat to themselves neutralized.
With the Turkish 'Army of Islam' drawing near, and recruiting a goodly number of militia to its ranks from among local Azerbajanis as it did, the Bolshevik committee, which already had made some overtures towards Gen. Dunsterville, was deposed, and the new Armenian Nationalist government invited Gen. Dunsterville to sail into Baku from Enzeli. This he did, arriving on August 16, 1918, with a force comprising a little less than a thousand infantry, some armored cars and field guns, and two Elephants, including No. 7494 and its pilot, Lt. MacKay of 72 Squadron.
What followed was a month long defense of the town against nearly twenty thousand Turkish troops, a mixture of Ottoman regulars and Azerbajani militia, by the soldiers of Dunsterforce, assisted by several thousand untrained Armenian militamen. The Elephants brought important information on Turkish deployments on several occassions, assisting Gen. Dunsterville in parrying Turkish thrusts, but the outer defensive lines were pierced by the Turks before September; behind these there was little favorable ground for defense, and Turkish artillery was in range of the town. The Turks massed for their final offensive during a dust storm that kept the Elephants on the ground, though it would not have made much difference had they been able to observe the preparations.
The attack came on September 14. Gen. Dusterville could only fight a rear-guard action against it, seeking to hold the Turkish advance off long enough to enable his men to retire to his ships in the harbor for evacuation after nightfall. His account of the action credits the Elephants and their two pilots, Lts. MacKay and Pope, with providing great assistance through strafings and bombings of Turkish troops at critical points. Flying low throughout the day, the aeroplanes were shot ragged, and No. 7494 and its fellow Elephant were burned that night to prevent their falling into Turkish hands. 'Dunsterforce' got off intact during the night, but the little R.A.F. contingent never recieved orders to pull back to the port, and instead piled into several trucks and drove off into the steppe, falling in with anti-Bolshevik Russians and only reaching saftety after considerable adventure. The Turkish commander held his regulars out of Baku for several days, giving the place over to massacre by his Azerbajani militia. Fighting between the English and Jangalis in northwestern Persia continued into 1920.
This is a scratch-build completed some years ago, but I have since done some small touchings up on it, and taken new photographs in sunlight. The pictures put up on the old Aerodrome modeling forum are gone, as we had long since ceased using 'Boomspeed' to host pictures.
The great challenge in doing this one was the need to make the whole nose hollow, to accommodate the visible motor, and the need as well to create the many perforations in the cowling. These were necessary for airflow through the internal radiator and in many photographs daylight shows through them. Doubtless the air through the open 'throat' of the cowling provided some cooling for the motor as well. The cabanes, too, go visibly through the cowling to the longerons. Complicating matters even further was the distinct upward slope in front the cockpit, which must change section from rather flat and angular to smoothy rounded as one proceeds forward. The whole piece in front of the cockpit is an eggshell, most of it made from quarter millimeter sheet, and in places sanded even further. I developed a sort of 'just enough to hold and no more' grip while working on the thing that still popped up now and then to make me drop something I should have been holding tight. The next most tricky part was the bare spars at the root of the lower wing, a fairly common feature on English reconnaisance machines throughout the Great War. I took some pains to distress the national markings, as photographs indicate that in the Middle East, the paints employed could not stand up to the sunlight for long.
