A spectacular battle between Arab rebels and British troops reinforced by a squadron of planes resulted today in the death of three soldiers and sixteen Arabs as sanguinary disorders neared the end of their twentieth week in the Holy Land.
The battle started when a band of fifty Arabs fired on a military patrol near Bala. Finding itself surrounded and in a desperate situation, the patrol signalled for reinforcements.
Troops which rushed to the patrol’s aid found the road blocked.
Meanwhile, a squadron of planes sped to the scene, located the band, swooped and raked it with machine gun fire, killing 16 Arabs and wounding four others.
One of the planes, riddled by rebel fire, crashed and burst into flames, Lieutenant Hunter and his gunner were killed in the crash.
A corporal of the Lincolnshire regiment was killed and two officers and one private were wounded in the battle.
Troops later demolished six houses in Bala from which the Arab rebels had opened fire.
A bomb was hurled into a military camp at Safed without doing any damage. Arabs set fire to a Jewish house in Poriah, near Kinereth on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
A Jewish-owned tannery in Givat Shaul, Jerusalem suburb, was razed to the ground early this morning by fire which started when an incendiary bomb was thrown into the factory by Arabs.
Rebels stoned a Jewish-owned bus passing Ramleh and wounded Moshe Boyarsky. He was taken to the Hadassah Hospital in Tel Aviv.
Buses passing Yagur near Haifa ran an Arab gauntlet of bullets and rocks in an attempt to prevent travel to and from Haifa.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
