World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseBritish Royal Marines and Indian troops captured the port of Aden from the Sultanate of Lahej in Jan 1839. It was then administered as a province of the British Indian Empire, also known as the British Raj. Over the next decades, diplomacy with the nine tribes surrounding the port city eventually grew to become the Aden Protectorate, which was a separate administrative body unrelated from the port of Aden. Through its history, the port of Aden had been important. As a part of the British Empire, it was even more so, for that Aden was situated about equidistant from the Suez Canal, Egypt; Mumbai, India; and the British protectorate of Zanzibar in eastern Africa. In 1937, the port of Aden was made a Crown Colony of its own. During WW2, the British Forces Aden controlled all military forces located in Aden, which was primarily aerial in nature. During the war, the No. 8 Squadron RAF, flying Blenheim light bombers, conducted anti-submarine warfare out of Aden, while supported by units flying various aircraft, including Hurricane fighters, Catalina seaplanes, Gladiator biplanes (for meteorological observation missions), etc. After the war, the port continued to thrive, becoming one of the busiest seaports in the world. In 1959, states within the Aden Protectorate began organizing under the name of Federation of Arab Emirates of the South. In 1962, the Crown Colony of Aden joined the federation. In 1967, the federation became the sovereign the People's Republic of South Yemen. In 1990, South Yemen merged with its northern neighbor Yemen Arab Republic, also known as North Yemen, and formed the new nation the Republic of Yemen.

Weather

WW2-Era Weather Data for Aden

Photographs

Aden in World War II Interactive Map

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