1925
Pink’s War
“First, plan your retreat. All expeditions into tribal lands end in retreat.” The obdurate and indomitable nature of the tribes of the Northwest Frontier of India is legendary. Warlike, fiercely independent, and clannish, they have bedevilled every attempt to curb their raids and blood feuds. For over a century they repelled the British Army, just as today they are a challenge to the Pakistani government.
In 1925, the Mahsud tribe of southern Waziristan was holding out against the British Raj and continuing to attack army outposts. The Royal Air Force, determined to succeed where the Army had failed, conducted its first independent action in strikes on Mahsud villages. Under Wing Commander Richard Pink, flying Bristol fighters and deHavilland DH9A light bombers, the RAF first leafleted the mountain strongholds to warn of impending attacks so that there would be no civilian casualties and then proceeded, day and night, to strafe, bomb (over 250 tons of ordinance) and harass the territory for weeks until the tribesmen finally agreed to a treaty.
