Ten Foat Planes Over El Afule—The Naval Air Raid That Stopped a Railway

Wing Commander Charles Rumney Samson's Favorite Floatplane,
Short 8372, Over Port Said

By I.M. Burns

Excerpted from Floatplanes Over The Desert

On 25 August 1916, Commander Charles Samson led ten floatplanes from three Royal Naval Air Service carriers in a coordinated strike against the Ottoman railway junction at El Afule, deep in the interior of Palestine. The raid was part of a sustained campaign by the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron to disrupt Turkish supply lines during the Sinai and Palestine campaigns of the First World War.

The plan was ambitious. Three seaplane carriers—Ben-my-Chree, Raven, and Anne—would launch their entire complement of Short and Sopwith float planes in a single formation. Each ship had a designated target within the El Afule complex: rolling stock in the station sidings, buildings and stores, and the main line south of the junction. The float planes would attack at staggered altitudes between 700 and 1,700 feet to avoid collisions.

Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss approved the operation immediately. The French Navy, pleased with recent work by Samson's squadron, provided destroyer escorts. The two slower carriers sailed on the morning of 24 August 1916, with Ben-my-Chree following in the afternoon. They assembled off Haifa before dawn.

Ben-my-Chree nearly missed the rendezvous. At 03:30 she ran onto an uncharted sandbar off Athlit, close to a known Turkish coastal battery. Flight Sub-Lieutenant George Dacre, aboard for the raid, recorded the moment with characteristic humour: "I was rudely awakened before dawn by my camp bed giving way and discovered that the cause was the ship had properly run into Syria in the dark and we were hard aground." After an hour of reversing engines, the carrier worked herself free and continued north.

Samson was first off at 05:30, his Short float plane's fin painted red for identification. The remaining Shorts formed up behind him in starboard quarter-line. The faster Sopwiths launched up to 25 minutes later, joining the formation as it headed inland. Once the bombs were dropped, the Sopwiths were to watch for enemy aeroplanes.

Target—El Afule Rail Junction

The flight took the formation up the valley between the Carmel and Nazareth ranges. Heavily loaded with bombs, Lewis guns, ammunition drums, and cameras, the float planes could barely climb. Turkish troops in camps around Tabaun opened fire as the formation passed through the valley, the machines bouncing in the turbulent air. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Guy Smith recalled: 'So intense was this attack upon us that I could hear the crackle of the guns above the roar of my motor.'

Smith's observer, Lieutenant Millard, was making notes and sketching, oblivious to the fire around them. Smith threw a biscuit at him to get his attention. "He immediately developed a pronounced peeve, indicating that his sketch had been spoiled. At any rate, I attracted his attention to the situation, and he forgot his grievance and got busy with the machine gun."

Emerging from the defile, the formation attacked. Raven's flight broke away first, swooping on a train steaming south from the station. Flight Sub-Lieutenant Paine's bombs damaged the track and set the last coach alight. Smith made four passes on the train, dropping bombs that demolished carriages and tore holes in the track. Between his runs, Flight Lieutenant Clemson attacked at 300 feet, his observer machine-gunning the locomotive crew.

Over El Afule itself, Turkish anti-aircraft fire was heavy. The defenses had been strengthened considerably since Samson's solo raid on 15 August. But within 15 minutes, the squadron had dropped one 112-lb, six 65-lb, 15 16-lb, and eight incendiary bombs. Station buildings burned, a locomotive and 14 carriages were destroyed or damaged, and stores were consumed by fire.

All ten machines returned safely between 06:32 and 07:10, most with bullet holes but no serious damage. Two Shorts launched again to assess the damage. They found fires still burning and reported that 'the permanent way south of the junction was completely wrecked. Rails uprooted, embankment destroyed.' Samson concluded in his report that 'the junction and south-going line will not be in operation for some time.'

Ben-my-Chee in the Suez Canal

On the return voyage, Ben-my-Chree intercepted two dhows running supplies to Turkish front-line troops. The crew of one vessel, brought aboard as prisoners, confirmed that Samson's earlier raid on 15 August had shut down rail traffic for five days.

The success was marred by the loss of Dacre. Sent to bomb a camp near Bureir that afternoon, he failed to return. His Sopwith's engine had quit at 3,000 feet, 12 miles inland. Forced to land on the floats, he recalled: "I got to within a few feet, pulling her back and back to do a pancake landing. I seemed to be actually travelling very slow just before I touched, but when I did hit Turkey she went over on to her nose like a flash."

A Damaged Short Float Plane 

Arab villagers seized him, threatening to cut his throat. Women beat him with sticks and threw mud in his face. A Turkish NCO arrived just in time, driving off the mob with a whip. Dacre spent the remainder of the war as a prisoner at Afion Kara Hissar. An American Embassy report in October confirmed his capture. He returned to the Royal Air Force after the war, retiring as an Air Commodore in 1944.

The El Afule raid demonstrated what coordinated naval air power could achieve against infrastructure far from the coast. Intelligence reports later confirmed that the damage was sufficient to halt traffic for several days, disrupting Ottoman supply lines during a critical phase of the campaign.

This article is adapted from Float Planes Over The Desert, available from Little Gully Publishing. Dedicated to preserving the stories of the past, Little Gully offers firsthand accounts, new histories and quality reissues. Visit littlegully.com to explore more and order your copy.