![EPISODES OF WWII: The armed arab dhow NAIP, one of KANIMBLA's 'fleet' for the invasion of Iran. Photo Derek Simon [1919-2004] courtesy GKA. | by Kookaburra2011](http://live.staticflickr.com/5309/5620367287_e377df0572.jpg)
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EPISODES OF WWII: The armed arab dhow NAIP, one of KANIMBLA's 'fleet' for the invasion of Iran. Photo Derek Simon [1919-2004] courtesy GKA.
4331. Again we think this image is rare: just possibly the only photo of the war dhow NAIP in existence. There appears to be a machinegun on her stern.
We're not sure what role NAIP played in the attack on Bandar Shahpur [now Bandar Imam Khomeini] , and the seizure of Axis tankers there during the invasion of Iran on August 24-25, 1941 - but one of covert reconnaissance seems likely.
[By the way, Graeme Andrews informs us that he has seen images of the two gunboats, CHAHBAAZ and KHARKUS in 1930s edition of Janes Fighting Ships, which means, hopefully, that we'll eventually find some details.We were relying on the JNS WWII compendenium edited by Antony Preston].
meantime, we have been attempting to identify some the other small ships that formed HMS/HMAS KANIMBLA's little rag-tag invasion flotilla.
Without being completely sure, we think the 'small gunboat' referred to in our sources may have been the trawler HMS MOONSTONE, the tugboat may have been SYDNEY THUBRON, and the Flower Class sloop HMS SNAPDRAGON may have also been involved. Each of these ships are indentified as part the salvage of the damaged Axis freighters soon after the event. HMS SNAPDRAGON was likely the third of the three sloops mentioned, the others being the heavily engaged HMAS YARRA, and HMS FALMOUTH at the iranian naval base near Khorramshahr, where Admiral Glolamali Bayandor was killed defending the base's radio station.
As we have now inserted with a preceding entry, the small Iranian Navy had only been established in 1932, nine years earlier, and the damage sustained on the first night of the joint British-Soviet invasion, Operation Countenance, on August 24-25, 1941, effectively brought its development and use to an end until 1947 in the postwar period, when work on developing the pre-revolutionary Imperial Iranian Navy resumed.
There is some history and images of the Imperial Iranian Navy [pre-1979 revolution] here:
Photo: Derek Simon [1919-2004, courtesy Graeme K. Andrews [RAN 1955-1968, RANR 1980].
EPISODES OF WWII: The armed arab dhow NAIP, one of KANIMBLA's 'fleet' for the invasion of Iran. Photo Derek Simon [1919-2004] courtesy GKA.
4331. Again we think this image is rare: just possibly the only photo of the war dhow NAIP in existence. There appears to be a machinegun on her stern.
We're not sure what role NAIP played in the attack on Bandar Shahpur [now Bandar Imam Khomeini] , and the seizure of Axis tankers there during the invasion of Iran on August 24-25, 1941 - but one of covert reconnaissance seems likely.
[By the way, Graeme Andrews informs us that he has seen images of the two gunboats, CHAHBAAZ and KHARKUS in 1930s edition of Janes Fighting Ships, which means, hopefully, that we'll eventually find some details.We were relying on the JNS WWII compendenium edited by Antony Preston].
meantime, we have been attempting to identify some the other small ships that formed HMS/HMAS KANIMBLA's little rag-tag invasion flotilla.
Without being completely sure, we think the 'small gunboat' referred to in our sources may have been the trawler HMS MOONSTONE, the tugboat may have been SYDNEY THUBRON, and the Flower Class sloop HMS SNAPDRAGON may have also been involved. Each of these ships are indentified as part the salvage of the damaged Axis freighters soon after the event. HMS SNAPDRAGON was likely the third of the three sloops mentioned, the others being the heavily engaged HMAS YARRA, and HMS FALMOUTH at the iranian naval base near Khorramshahr, where Admiral Glolamali Bayandor was killed defending the base's radio station.
As we have now inserted with a preceding entry, the small Iranian Navy had only been established in 1932, nine years earlier, and the damage sustained on the first night of the joint British-Soviet invasion, Operation Countenance, on August 24-25, 1941, effectively brought its development and use to an end until 1947 in the postwar period, when work on developing the pre-revolutionary Imperial Iranian Navy resumed.
There is some history and images of the Imperial Iranian Navy [pre-1979 revolution] here:
Photo: Derek Simon [1919-2004, courtesy Graeme K. Andrews [RAN 1955-1968, RANR 1980].