To: Arik T.G. who wrote (67311 ) 7/12/1999 3:52:00 PM From: X Y Zebra Read Replies (1) | Respond to
See my previous post [edited]... details here....Thomas Edward Lawrence, known to his family as Ned, was born in Wales in 1888. He was the second of five illegitimate sons of Sir Thomas Chapman, an Anglo-Irish baronet, and Sarah Junner, who had previously been employed in the Chapman household as governess to Thomas's four legitimate daughters. Having eloped together, Thomas and Sarah adopted the name 'Lawrence.' Lawrence had visited Akaba before the war, and knew from his intelligence work in Cairo that the Turks had built heavy defences in the narrow pass leading inland up the Wadi Itm. Thus while Akaba itself could easily be captured from the sea, Wadi Itm was virtually impregnable. Without Wadi Itm, Akaba itself would be worthless. Lawrence therefore devised a scheme, using local knowledge and tribesmen, to make a wide circuit inland through the desert. His small party would raise a force locally, and take the Wadi Itm defences by approaching them from the rear. Lawrence's account of the Arab revolt in Seven Pillars of Wisdom is borne out by British military documents now available. They show that his personal influence between July 1917 and September 1918 was, if anything, understated in the book. He was posted to a flying-boat unit at Plymouth, where he was to become passionately committed to a new cause. At the beginning of 1931 he witnessed a flying-boat crash, quite close to the shore. The old-fashioned rescue launch was so slow to reach the scene that lives were lost needlessly. As it happened, he had recently refurbished an American motor-launch built to a much faster planing-hull design. From then on he and his Commanding Officer (a long-standing personal friend) campaigned for the adoption by the RAF of planing-hull launches. Lawrence became deeply involved in the development of these craft, spending his last Air Force years working in boatyards in civilian clothes. As a direct consequence of these efforts, by the outbreak of World War II in 1939 the RAF was equipped with a fleet of high-speed launches. These were to save many thousands of lives. In May, while riding his motor-cycle on a local errand, he swerved to avoid two cyclists and was thrown from his machine. He suffered severe head injuries and died some days later, having never regained consciousness. castle-hill-press.com
