a few hundred feet, and
giving the scattered troops machine-gun fire on the return journey.

A glance at the list of honours bestowed on officers and other ranks
of the R.F.C. serving with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1917
is sufficient to give an idea of the efficiency of the service of our
airmen. It must be remembered that the Palestine Wing was small, if
thoroughly representative of the Flying Corps; its numbers were few
but the quality was there. Indeed I heard the Australian squadron of
flying men which formed part of the Wing described by the highest
possible authority as probably the finest squadron in the whole of the
British service. This following list of honours is, perhaps, the most
eloquent testimony to the airmen's work in Palestine:

Victoria Cross . . . . . 1
Distinguished Service Order . . . 4
Military Cross . . . . . 34
Croix de Guerre . . . . 2
Military Medal . . . . . 1
Meritorious Service Medal . . . 14
Order of the Nile . . . . 2

The sum total of the R.F.C. work was not to be calculated merely from
death and damage caused to the enemy from the air. Strategical and
tactical reconnaissances formed a large part of the daily round,
and the reports brought in always added to our Army's store of
information. In Palestine, possibly to a greater extent than in any
other theatre of war, our map-makers had to rely on aerial photographs
to supply them with the details required for military maps. The best
maps we had of Palestine were those prepared by Lieutenant H.H.
Kitchener, R.E., and Lieutenant Conder in 1881 for the Palestine
Exploration Fund. They were still remarkably accurate so far as they
went, but 'roads,' to give the tracks a description to which they were
not entitled, had altered, and villages had disappeared, and newer and
additional information had to be supplied. The Royal Flying Corps--it
had not yet become the Royal Air Force--furnished it, and all
important details of hundreds of square miles of country which survey
parties could not reach were registered with wonderful accuracy by
aerial photographers.

The work began for the battle of Rafa, and the enemy positions on the
Magruntein hill were all set out before General Chetwode when the
Desert Column attacked and scored an important victory. Then when
12,