W.T. Massey - How Jerusalem Was Won. Allenby's Campaign in Palestine
remarkable improvement in the sick and death rates, not only of Jerusalem but of all the towns and
districts. The new water supply will unquestionably help to lower the figures still further. A medical
authority recently told me that the health of the community was wonderfully good and there was no
suspicion of cholera, outbreaks of which were frequent under the Turkish regime. Government hospitals
were established in all large centres. In this country where small-pox takes a heavy toll the 'conscientious
objector' was unknown, and many thousands of natives in a few months came forward of their own free
will to be vaccinated. Typhus and relapsing fever, both lice-borne diseases, used to claim many victims,
but the figures fell very rapidly, due largely, no doubt, to the full use to which disinfecting plants were
put in all areas of the occupied territory. The virtues of bodily cleanliness were taught, and the people
were given that personal attention which was entirely lacking under Turkish rule. It is not easy to
overcome the prejudices and cure the habits of thousands of years, but progress is being made surely if
slowly, and already there is a gratifying improvement in the condition of the people which is patent to
any observer.
In Jerusalem an infants' welfare bureau was instituted, where mothers were seen before and after
childbirth, infants' clinics were established, a body of health was formed, and a kitchen was opened to
provide food for babies and the poor. The nurses were mainly local subjects who had to undergo an
adequate training, and there was no one who did not confidently predict a rapid fall in the infant
mortality rate which, to the shame of the Turkish administration, was fully a dozen times that of the
highest of English towns. The spadework was all done by the medical staff of the Occupied Enemy
Territory Administration. The call was urgent, and though labouring under war-time difficulties they got
things going quickly and smoothly. Some voluntary societies were assisting, and the enthusiasm of the
American Red Cross units enabled all to carry on a great and beneficent work.
CHAPTER XX. OUR CONQUERING AIRMEN
The airmen who were the eyes of the Army in Sinai and Palestine can look back on their record as a great
achievement. Enormous difficulties were faced with stout hearts, and the Royal Flying Corps spirit
surmounted them. It was one long test of courage, endurance, and efficiency, and so triumphantly did the
airmen come through the ordeal that General Allenby's Army may truthfully be said to have secured as
complete a mastery of the air as it did of the plains and hills of Southern Palestine. Those of us who
watched the airmen 'carrying on,' from the time when their aeroplanes were inferior to those of the
Germans in speed, climbing capacity, and other qualities which go to make up first-class fighting
machines, till the position during the great advance when few enemy aviators dared cross our lines, can
well testify to the wonderful work our airmen performed.
With comparatively few opportunities for combat because the enemy knew his inferiority and declined to
fight unless forced, the pilots and observers from the moment our attack was about to start were always
aggressive, and though the number of their victims may seem small compared with aerial victories on the
Western Front they were substantial and important. In the month of January 1917 the flying men
accounted for eleven aeroplanes, five of these falling victims to one pilot. The last of these victories I
myself witnessed. In a single-seater the pilot engaged two two-seater aeroplanes of a late type, driving
down one machine within our line, the pilot killed by eleven bullets and the observer wounded. He then
chased the other plane, whose pilot soon lost his taste for fighting, dropped into a heavy cloud bank, and
got away. No odds were too great for our airmen. I have seen one aeroplane swoop down out of the blue
to attack a formation of six enemy machines, sending one crashing to earth and dispersing the remainder.
In one brief fight another pilot drove down three German planes. The airman does not talk of his work,
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