Oblong folio (335 x 240 mm). 16 ff. 110 albumen and silver gelatin photographs mounted in photo corners, with handwritten captions. Contemporary saddle-stitched faux crocodile leather boards with tassel. Over one hundred original photographs of R.A.F servicemen in interwar Iraq. Scenes range from the wreckage of a deadly plane crash, men driving an early tank, locals going about daily life, and servicemen entertaining themselves in their recreational time. Most photographs are captioned by the anonymous owner of the album, with a few captioned in plate; all provide a snapshot of the early days of both the R.A.F. and of modern Iraq. - Various contemporary aircraft are photographed, including a Vickers Vimy Commercial experiencing an awkward landing, the first-ever prototype of the Vickers Victoria (captioned simply, "John's plane"), the de Havilland DH.60 Moth ("Stack and his 'Mooth' aeroplane"), a Halifax II which would go on to be shot down over France during the second world war (captioned "Soap with Snipe"; it is unclear between the plane and the pilot which is Soap and which is Snipe). - One photograph of "Alan Cobham and his plane" shows Cobham (1894-1973), by then already a world-famous aviator posing with a biplane, and another five (one of which has been colorized) show Cobham's de Havilland DH.50 floatplane on the Tigris, likely en route through Baghdad on his record-breaking flight from Britain to Australia. These photos would have been taken very shortly before Cobham's engineer of the D.H.50 aircraft, Arthur B. Elliot, was shot and killed after the pair left Baghdad on the 5th of July 1926. More somberly captioned are five photographs of the "Result of the Vernon Crash", dated two weeks after the incident and showing the wreckage of the No. 45 Squadron's Vickers Vernon, which had crashed into a shed at Hinaidi, killing seven: Oswald Kempson Stirling Webb, Reginald Carey Brinton Brading, Eric Miller Pollard, Edgar Kennedy, Francis Crawford Inglis, Horace Leslie Davies, and Edgar Whittle. - Photographs of local Iraqis and scenery around Baghdad include a line of convicts, a pontoon bridge spanning the Tigris, milk sellers, farming methods, money changers, pottery shops, letter writers, butchers, an Armenian family, a flooded Baghdad North Station, the "Baghdad Bridge", falconers, copper merchants, the Kadi mosque, mourners at a funeral, a distant view of the crumbling crusader fort Qal'at al-Shaqif (captioned "Belfort Castle"), and an "oil gusher" spouting in Kirbuk district. - The remainder of the photographs are devoted to soldiers at rest and the mishaps of military life (including many lorries stuck in the mud); men play tug-of-war, and one serviceman poses with his accordion and a small dog sitting atop a stool with a pipe in its mouth. There are fancy dress parties, snapshots of the barracks and troop ships, and servicemen tromping through calf-deep mud. A thorough collection that provides a sum of daily life in interwar Iraq, ranging from the humorous to the tragic, including both military and civilian life. - Quite well preserved.
