The outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East—an elastic term in its wartime usage, covering any territory, which was absorbed into the Middle East Command—found us with forces exiguous even by our own standards of military preparation. On 11th June Longmore received an official definition of his sphere of action. He was to command 'all Royal Air Force units stationed or operating in … Egypt, Sudan, Palestine and Trans-Jordan, East Africa, Aden and Somaliland, Iraq and adjacent territories, Cyprus, Turkey, Balkans (Yugoslavia, Rumania, Bulgaria and Greece), Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Persian Gulf'—an area of some four and a half million square miles. Unfortunately his resources were not on the same generous scale as his responsibilities. Twenty-nine squadrons, or some three hundred first-line aircraft, comprised the total. For the main types there was a hundred percent reserve available, but in the circumstances of June 1940, replacements and reinforcements from home would not be forthcoming very easily. Nor was there a local aircraft industry to help in the work of repair.
Almost half of these three hundred aircraft were based in Egypt, with the remainder in Palestine, the Sudan, Kenya, Aden and Gibraltar—a deployment corresponding with their primary role, which was defined as 'the defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal and the maintenance of communication through the Red Sea'.1 The squadrons in Egypt, where the heaviest fighting was expected, were mainly those with the more up-to-date aircraft; the older types were relegated to the subordinate theatres. Few of the machines, however, were really modern. Nine of the fourteen bomber squadrons were armed with the reasonably efficient but very short-range Blenheim I, and two of the four naval cooperation squadrons had Sunderlands; but even the best equipped of the tactical reconnaissance squadrons flew the virtually defenceless Lysander. None of the five fighter squadrons had anything better than the obsolescent Gladiator biplane. Together, the Blenheims, Sunderlands, Lysanders and Gladiators made up eighteen of the twenty-nine squadrons. The remaining eleven were mounted on a remarkable assortment of miscellaneous and out-dated oddments, including Bombays, Valentias, Wellesleys, Vincents, Battles, Ju.86's (of the South African Air Force), Hardys, Audaxes, Harts, Hartebeestes and Londons. This did not prevent their rendering effective, and indeed noble, service.
Against these slender British resources the Italians could pit 282 aircraft in Libya, 150 in Italian East Africa, 47 in the Dodecanese, and as many more of their home strength of 1,200 machines as they were able, or cared, to concentrate in southern Italy and Sicily, or send over to Africa. Of the aircraft already in Africa in June 1940, the best fighter, the Cr.42, was about evenly matched with the Gladiator, while the main bomber, the S.79, though rather slower than the Blenheim I, had a longer endurance and carried a greater bomb-load. In terms of performance, the aircraft of the two sides were on the whole not unequal. It was in numbers, and in ease of reinforcement, that the Italian advantage lay.