Above and beyond Palestine

A unique first-hand account of the squadron by its intelligence officer. Through personal anecdotes and original line sketches, C.E. Hughes captures both the military operations and daily life of naval airmen based at Port Said. The book details their reconnaissance work over Palestine, raids on Turkish positions, and leisure time in Cairo, offering valuable insights into the First World War in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea. "The work of the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron was very seldom mentioned in published official reports and its record is accordingly very little known, yet without its story the familiar one of the campaign in Palestine and Syria is incomplete." The book features 63 of Hughes' elegant black-and-white sketches depicting locations across the region, including Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said, Gaza, Askalon, Ramleh, Ludd, Tul Keram, El Fule, Haifa, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, and Damascus. Hughes also illustrates several Royal Navy seaplane carriers—HMS Anne, Raven, Ben-my-Chree, Empress, and City of Oxford—along with a Short floatplane stationed at the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) base in Port Said. Originally published in 1930 by Ernest Benn Limited, London, this new annotated edition faithfully reproduces the original text and illustrations. An afterword by aviation historian Ian M. Burns gives biographical details of Hughes's life and career. Burns, a British aerospace engineer turned aviation historian, has dedicated his career to documenting early naval aviation. His published works include a 2008 history of HMS Ben-my-Chree and a 2014 examination of Royal Naval Air Service North Sea operations, alongside numerous contributions to military aviation journals. Burns' upcoming 2025 release, Floatplanes Over The Desert, chronicles the little-known operations of French and British floatplanes behind enemy lines during WWI, covering activities from the Palestinian coast to the Maldives, Gallipoli, and Salonika, enriched with rare photographs and meticulous research.