Above and beyond Palestine

A valuable first-hand account by one of its intelligence officers. 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 war in the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

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’ black-and-white sketches depicting locations across the region, including Alexandria, Cairo, Port Said, Gaza, Askalon, Ramleh, 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—and 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 edition faithfully reproduces the original text and illustrations.

A new afterword by naval aviation historian Ian M. Burns gives biographical details of Hughes’s life and career. Ian is a retired aerospace engineer and naval aviation historian whose works include a history of HMS Ben-my-Chree (2008) and an examination of the Royal Naval Air Service and the birth of the aircraft carrier (2014).

Ian describes Hughes’ memoir as “essential” for understanding First World War naval aviation in the eastern theatres. Unlike other memoirs such as William Wedgwood Benn’s In The Side Shows or Charles Rumney Samson’s Fights and Flights, Hughes’ account provides those everyday details about life and operations with the East Indies and Egypt Seaplane Squadron that simply cannot be found elsewhere. “It is in fact probably the most useful and interesting as it includes many everyday details missing from the other books.”

This reissue of Above and beyond Palestine precedes Ian’s comprehensive history Floatplanes Over The Desert, due in mid-2025, which will examine how French and British naval aviators operated seaplanes far behind enemy lines, pioneering techniques that continue to define naval aviation.

The work of the naval airmen in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea during the War has never been described until now. How incessant and effective it was we may see in Mr. C.E. Hughes’ clever and amusing book… Long before our troops entered Palestine, our seaplanes had been mapping the country and worrying the Turk by raids on his communications and depots, to say nothing of combined naval and air attacks on Beirut and other places… Few books about the War have been so cheerful or so brightly written as this modest volume.

— The Spectator, 1930