Intro Section 1
1914-1920
Section 2
1920-1923
Section 3
1923-1928
Section 4
1929-1930
Section 5
1930-1936
Section 6
1936-1939
Section 7
1937-1939
Section 8
1939-1943
Section 9
1943-1945
Section 10
1945-1946
Section 11
Jan-May 1947
Section 12
May-Nov 1947
Section 13
Dec 1947-April 1948
Section 14
Evacuation 1948
Stand Down
July 1948



Pages in Section 7

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Tegart's Wall

i. The Arab Revolt Continues

ii. The Irgun retaliate

iii. The Army takes over

iv. Tegart's Wall

v. Wyngate's Night Squads

vi. Arabs capture Old City

vii. White Paper

viii. 1939 Jewish Political Scene

Tegart arrives in JerusalemIn December 1937 Sir Charles Tegart arrived to assess the situation and give advice. He came with the highest of qualifications. He had joined the Calcutta Police in 1901, and had served there almost continuously, moving up the ranks until he had become Commissioner of the Calcutta Police in 1923. By 1937 he was regarded as the Empire's highest expert on policing unruly areas.

Building Tegart's Wall Sir Charles Tegart advised the Inspector General to construct a Frontier fence along the northern border to control the movement of insurgents, goods and weapons and also to build a line of reinforced concrete police stations and pill boxes. Alan Saunders accepted the recommendations. In his memoirs David Hacohen, a director of the Jewish building firm, Solel Boneh, records a conversation with Tegart, regarding his contract to build the wall.

He warned Tegart that Britain didn't have enough barbed for the project. Tegart, he says, joked that he didn't own shares in British barbed wire companies so Solel Boneh was free to buy it from wherever it was available. Solel Boneh bought it from Mussolini's Italy. The 9ft fence was swiftly erected but even before it was finished rebels had sabotaged a section. The fence impeded legitimate trade and it crossed pastures and private land,so Arab tractors and bulldozers were constantly bringing it down.

pillbox In 1939, when the Arab Revolt was over, the fence was taken down. However,many concrete police stations and pill boxes built alongside the wall remain.
The photo on the left shows a still existing pillbox.
The outbreak of WW 2 temporarily halted the construction of further tegarts inland.
(More about tegarts later in The Final Fortress).

Wyngate's Night Squads     

Text - Copyright British Palestine Police Association