‘File 7/17 Additional aerodromes – Manama’ [‎6r] (13/38)

secret /
D.O.No.C/21.
Political Agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. ,
Bahrain, 6th January 1946.
My dear Sir Geoffrey,
Group Captain Curtain-Jones (who is the Staff Officer-
in-Charge of Administration, Habbaniyah), and has been down
y*
here with the Survey party mentioned in my telegram No. 1104
dated the 12th December 1944, called to see me yesterday
evening. He said that they had selected two possible sites
for a landing ground on Manamah Island neither of which were
ideal and that whichever of the two was eventually chosen it
would prove somewhat of a problem for the engineers. One of
the sites is just after the main Manamah-Awali road leaves the
palm belt and the other is on the west side of the island
between Budayah and Zellaq. According to Curtain-Jones his
suggestions will now go to the Air Ministry and nothing will
be heard of the project until they have considered the matter.
2. The area required is very considerable. As much as
four thousand yards of clear ground being necessary in these
days for the main runv/ay, of this approximately three thousand
five hundred yards would be made runway. In addition there
must be two other runways of approximately two thousand yards.
I asked Curtain-Jones to let me have a rough plan of the selec
ted areas so that I could make preliminary enquiries regarding
the ownership of the land. He asked whether there would be
any difficulty in acquiring the land,and I said that as far as
I could foresee there would be very little difficulty if the
ground were Bahrain Government owned but that in the event of
it being privately owned there might be serious difficulties.
3. I asked why an additional landing ground was required
and was told that Muharraq was not, in Its present state,
sufficiently firm for very heavy bombers, that the work of
building concrete runways, though perfectly feasible, could
/only
The Hobble Sir Geoffrey Prior, K.C.I.E.,
political Resident A senior ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul General) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Residency. in the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ,
Bushire.