Few people are aware of how close Bahrain came to hitting the headlines during the Second World War. A slice of Bahrain’s history is served up in an engaging new book by Hamad Abdulla.

The Kingdom, along with Saudi Arabia, was the only country in the Gulf to be bombed by the Axis powers during World War II (WWII), in a daring attack on the region’s oil resources.

Hamad Abdulla’s book in Arabic, Ettore Muti: The Legend of Fascist Italy, chronicles the life and times of the Italian pilot who led the air strike on Bahrain’s oil refineries on October 19, 1940.

Muti, a firebrand Fascist politician was decorated many times for his audacious feats on the battlefield. He also played a key role in promoting Fascism in Italy, with enlistment going up in record numbers during his tenure at the helm of the National Fascist Party.

When Italy joined the war in 1940, Muti, who was then party secretary, agreed to be demoted to join the Italian Air Force. The attack on Bahrain’s refineries was planned to deflect Britain’s attention from the Mediterranean and to cut off their oil supply from the region.

“While bombing the enemy’s oil resources was a very common practice during the WWII, this attack was made unique by the distance the Italian bomber planes traversed to reach Bahrain,” notes Abdulla.

The planes took off from the Isles of Rhodes on October 18 and reached Bahrain the next morning, covering a distance of nearly 2,800 miles in 15 hours and 33 minutes. No one in the Kingdom expected the enemy to arrive in this preposterous manner and the runway at Bahrain airport was unwittingly lit up when the Italian planes were sighted!

The attack, however, was jinxed from the beginning. One of the four bomber planes blundered its way to Saudi Arabia and mistakenly bombed some refineries there, while the three remaining planes which reached the Bapco refinery in Sitra dropped 132 bombs, but every one missed the refinery!

Historians believe this was because the flares had been moved a few days before the attack.

After the attack, Bahrain, which supported the Allied forces, collected Rs18,424 to help buy a plane for the British, who were in desperate need of more airplanes.

When he set about researching the book, Abdulla faced an acute lack of resources in the English language. “Nothing was ever written about this man in the Arab world and not much information was available in English,” he recalls.

Finally, he ordered Italian books and magazines online and had them translated. The book has been published on the 70th anniversary of the air raid on Bahrain.

“Muti is not known in Bahrain at all. I felt it my duty to chronicle his life,” says Abdulla, who heads a media company. However, he is clear that he made no attempts to glorify the man who is often perceived negatively owing to his cruel persona and for his role in promoting Fascism.

“I’ve tried to provide many unknown details of his life. In all fairness, I’ve also provided disturbing details, including the fact that he took pleasure in torturing animals in his childhood.

I leave it to the readers to form their opinion,” he says.

Abdulla is now working on his next book which is based on the Hejaz Railway, a narrow gauge railway track connecting Istanbul to Medina in Saudi Arabia, which was part of the Ottoman railway network and destroyed during the Second World War. But that’s another story.