RAF Armoured Car Company
military unit
The RAF Armoured Car Companies were part of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) based in Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan. They were formed to operate with aircraft squadrons to suppress insurrection and maintain peace in the area in the aftermath of World War I.
Reason For Creation
A large and expensive army was required to maintain peace in Mesopotamia after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire by the British in the Mesopotamian campaign of World War I. At the Cairo Conference (1921) it was agreed by Chief of the Air Staff Lord Trenchard and Secretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill that the Royal Air Force would take over control from the British Army. It was considered the security of the newly created country of Iraq could be achieved by aircraft squadrons supported by RAF armoured cars and a small number of ground forces.
Creation
In the winter of 1921/1922 airmen and officers of the RAF were assembled at RAF Heliopolis on the outskirts of Cairo in Egypt to train and form the nucleus of the RAF Armoured Car Companies.
On 19 December 1921, No.1 Armoured Car Company RAF (1 ACC) was formally established at Heliopolis and then, having become operational, moved to Palestine in May 1922. They were disbanded there on 1 December 1923 with elements being absorbed into No.2 Armoured Car Company RAF (2 ACC).
On 7 April 1922 the remaining airmen under training at RAF Heliopolis were formed into 2 ACC and a month later proceeded to Palestine & Transjordan.
In May 1922 airmen and officers assembled at RAF Manston in Kent, England, to train as armoured car crew for service in Mesopotamia (Iraq). On 14 September 1922 they set sail on the first Royal Air Force troopship from Southampton with other RAF personnel bound for Iraq.
Locations and subsequent history
In Iraq, No.3 Armoured Car Company RAF (3 ACC) was based at Basrah operating in Southern Iraq, No.5 Armoured Car Company RAF (5 ACC) at Mosul with No.4 Armoured Car Company RAF (4 ACC), No.6 Armoured Car Company RAF (6 ACC) and a headquarters in Baghdad.
The public source identifies “RAF Armoured Car Company” as military unit. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Armoured, Company and military.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18392885. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 1922 and 1923.
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This entry incorporates text from “RAF Armoured Car Company” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.