![]() ![]() Boyd appears to have been unaware of the memoir published in 1947 by John Connell, the pen-name of the man who set up the station in war-time Palestine – and of a well-informed article published in The Listener in 1970, which charts the station’s rise and fall in telling detail. Footnote 1 But while it provides a detailed account of events leading to the station’s demise in 1956, the article is virtually silent on the station’s origins on the grounds that these are ‘largely unknown’. Douglas Boyd’s 2003 article on the station has become the standard source. ![]() ![]() The literature on Sharq al-Adna is curiously lop-sided. It was a sorry conclusion to a fifteen-year history which has remained little known or, at best, shrouded in mystery, half-truth, and controversy. Its reputation damaged beyond the repair, the station was subsequently closed down and its transmitters handed over to the BBC. When the station’s British director protested at the takeover, he was placed under house arrest, leading the Arab staff to walk out. ![]() As Britain, France, and Israel launched their attack on Egypt, the station, then based in Cyprus, was requisitioned by the British government, renamed Voice of Britain, and reduced to producing crudely belligerent anti-Egyptian propaganda. The radio station Sharq al-Adna is principally remembered today for its inglorious demise at the time of the Suez crisis of 1956. ![]()
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