Contents lists
T. E. Lawrence to Sir Hugh Trenchard
[Cattewater]
29.VII.29.
Dear Sir Hugh,
I knew you'd consider the Empty Desert idea: I hope it will be in your time. Philip Sassoon would have helped it, with his imagination. I don't know your present team.
I spoke about it to G.B.S. and said if he met Lord T. would he urge it on him? Unfortunately he wrote to him, instead. Writing isn't so supple an appeal. Also he seems to have mentioned me, which of course disquiets the civilians. I wanted the job considered on scientific grounds. It is the last piece of exploration on earth. Doing it completes our knowledge of the globe. It can only be done safely, cheaply and quickly by an airship. I want the doing it to be an Air Ministry deed, without press warning or pressure, beforehand. Let us* get the credit: and for the Lord's sake do it quietly. If I am of the crew, I'll get the credit: the press loves that sort of cheap personal touch. It would be much better if your maps staff officer went, and your best navigator, and a draughtsman and an intelligence man, to write something plainly official.
Yours sincerely,
T.E. Shaw
* Us is the R.A.F., in case you don't know!
| Source: | DG 666 |
| Checked: | dn/ |
| Last revised: | 8 March 2006 |
T. E. Lawrence chronology
1888 16 August: born at Tremadoc, Wales
1896-1907: City of Oxford High School for Boys
1907-9: Jesus College, Oxford, B.A., 1st Class Hons, 1909
1910-14: Magdalen College, Oxford (Senior Demy), while working at the British Museum's excavations at Carchemish
1915-16: Military Intelligence Dept, Cairo
1916-18: Liaison Officer with the Arab Revolt
1919: Attended the Paris Peace Conference
1919-22: wrote Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1921-2: Adviser on Arab Affairs to Winston Churchill at the Colonial Office
1922 August: Enlisted in the Ranks of the RAF
1923 January: discharged from the RAF
1923 March: enlisted in the Tank Corps
1923: translated a French novel, The Forest Giant
1924-6: prepared the subscribers' abridgement of Seven Pillars of Wisdom
1927-8: stationed at Karachi, then Miranshah
1927 March: Revolt in the Desert, an abridgement of Seven Pillars, published
1928: completed The Mint, began translating Homer's Odyssey
1929-33: stationed at Plymouth
1931: started working on RAF boats
1932: his translation of the Odyssey published
1933-5: attached to MAEE, Felixstowe
1935 February: retired from the RAF
1935 19 May: died from injuries received in a motor-cycle crash on 13 May
1935 21 May: buried at Moreton, Dorset