N.Z. BUILDER OF ROAD TO IRAN

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 209, 3 September 1941, Page 8

N.Z. BUILDER OF ROAD TO IRAN

News that some of the British units which entered Jran were recently advancing from ’northern Iraq toward Tabriz is of special interest to New Zealand, as the only practicable road through this wild country was built by a New Zealander, Captain A. M. Hamilton. Directing a motley collection of Persians, Kurds. Assyrians and Arabs, he laboured for five years from 3928 in building the vital link through the Kurdistan Mountains. This section, known as the Rowan- I duz road, joins the Iran road system from Teheran and Tabriz round Lake Urmia, where the British troops expect to meet the Russians advancing from the north, with the road through the oilfields of northern Iraq and thence through Syria to Beirut on the Mediterranean. The road was built both to open up trade with Iran and to help pacify the Kurdish tribesmen, whose wild and fanatical blood feud had made the area notorious. From Arbil. terminus { of the road from Mosul, Captain Hamilton was faced with building a road to the Iran border over country which was traversed only by a centuries-old caravan trail. The route crossed no fewer than five mountain ranges, and involved the passage of the Rowanduz and Berserini gorges, two of the most stupendous ! natural obstacles in Asia. How after five years of strugle a modern highway was built through this wild country inhabited i'y brigands whose deeds ; were by-words throughout Iraq is told by Captain Hamilton in his book, “Road Through Kurdistan.” Throughout the period he acted as engineer, paymaster, doctor and lawgiver, teaching his strangely-assorted workers the arts of roadmaking and the use of machinery, engaging in hazardous explorations of possible routes among a maze of and torrents, making friends with brigands and chieftains. To-dav his T abours provide . direct an* 1 access for the British