Page "1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine" Paragraph 55

Now I will never forget this incident .... We were at al-Malikiyya, the other frontier base and word came through about 6 o ' clock in the morning that one of our patrols had been blown up and Millie Law dead officer had been killed.

Now Gerald Whitfeld G. H. P.

Whitfeld, the battalion commander had told these mukhtars that if any of this sort of thing happened he would take punitive measures against the nearest village to the scene of the mine.

Well the nearest village to the scene of the mine was a place called al-Bassa and our Company C were ordered to take part in punitive measures.

And I will never forget arriving at al-Bassa and seeing the Rolls Royce armoured cars of the 11th Hussars peppering Bassa with machine gun fire and this went on for about 20 minutes and then we went in and I remembered we had lighted braziers and we set the houses on fire and we burnt the village to the ground ... Monty had him battalion commander up and he asked him all about it and Gerald Whitfeld explained to him.

He said " Sir, I have warned the mukhtars in these villages that if this happened to any of my officers or men, I would take punitive measures against them and I did this and I would've lost control of the frontier if I hadn't.

" Monty said " All right but just go a wee bit easier in the future.