Faced with a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't choice of action when Nazis began occupying the Aleppo, Palmyra and Damascus airfields in French-mandated Syria, the British made a quick decision. They chose to be damned-for-doing.
To invade Syria with the forces available from the Middle East Command—in face of the Nazis' well-proved winged might—was risk enough. There was the added risk that the invasion would give the Germans an argument to force Vichy to send the remains of the French Fleet against the British. But to let Syria fall into the Nazis' lap without a struggle would have been a strategic and political disaster for which the Churchill Government dared not take responsibility. This time the British effort might again be too little, but at least it would not be too late.
In the middle of a starry desert night, General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson poked a three-pronged drive into Syria. One prong from Palestine aimed up the coast at Beirut, Syria's No. i port; another from Amman in Trans-Jordan through the mountainous Druse district towards Damascus; the third from Iraq up the Euphrates Valley toward Deir-ez-Zor, one of the most important French garrisons in the country. Royal Navy units gathered off the coast and opened fire, R.A.F. bombers punched hard at airfields.
Keystone Contention. Syria, slightly smaller than Nebraska, is the keystone of the whole Middle East. Firmly established there, the Germans could: 1) complete the encirclement of Turkey; 2) march on to Iraq and its oil fields; 3) execute a super-colossal grand slam on Palestine, Trans-Jordan and the Suez Canal, which, coupled with a drive from Libya, would chase the British out of the Mediterranean Theater. As it stood, the Germans had already bypassed Cyprus.
For the past several weeks it has been clear that the Germans have been giving the keystone plenty of attention. This time they varied somewhat the play acting that goes with standard Nazi infiltration. Instead of the usual hocus-pocus about being "tourists," they assumed new roles. A large number were reported to have debarked at Beirut from a hospital ship as fake-wounded, bandaged, limping and laughing. Others, blond, husky, erect, entered via Turkey under bogus passports as refugee Rumanian Jews, their suitcases marked with large Js. At Aleppo, German officers were strutting about in shorts, apparently made up as sportsmen. It seemed there they were also miming French pilots. A group of French fighters which brought down a British bomber were said to have been Nazi-manned.
These spurious itinerants, helped by airborne troops from Rhodes, took over from the French the Syrian airfields. They also enlarged the landing stage at Latakia. Syria's northernmost port.