Fly class River Gunboats
Sixteen Fly class gunboats were built for the RN during the First World War for service on the Tigris river in Mesopotamia. They displaced 98 tons, and were armed with one 4-inch Mk VII QF, one 12-pdr QF, one 6-pdr or one 3-pdr, one 40mm pom-pom and four-five 0.303” Maxim machine guns.
On 1 March 1923, seven boats of this class (one of which was a hulk following a fire in 1920) were sold to Mirza Hussain Bushire, a Persian subject from Basra:
- Mayfly (F1)
- Sawfly (F2)
- Butterfly (F5)
- Snakefly (F6)
- Stonefly (F7)
- Cranefly (F8)
- Greenfly (Hulk)
Prior to sale, the guns and gun mountings, signal mast, and protective plating were removed. Due to the fact that these vessels had previously been vessels of war, the sales contract specified that they were being sold for breaking up within the port of Basra, however it would appear that this was not acknowledged by Bushire, who subsequently denied knowledge of this condition.
One of these seven boats was presented by Bushire to the Persian Government. After being refitted (including the fitting of a 3-pdr gun), she appeared as the river gunboat Khuzistan, which in 1925 operated against Bedouin Arabs near Khorramshahr, including firing on inhabitants of Iraq in Iraqi territory.
The identify of the boat that became Khuzistan has not been confirmed, but Greenfly was a hulk, and Butterfly and Cranefly were still in Bushire’s possession in around June 1926, so it would appear that Khuzistan was one of the remaining four boats listed above.
Article XVIII of the Washington Naval Treaty specifies that: Each of the Contracting Powers undertakes not to dispose by gift, sale or any mode of transfer of any vessel of war in such a manner that such vessel may become a vessel of war in the navy of any foreign Power. When it became apparent that this provision had been breached in the disposal of the Fly class gunboats, the Admiralty wrote to the Air Ministry advising that the precautions taken to prevent a breach of the Treaty were inadequate, and advise that the sale of all ex-Navy vessels should be restricted to British subjects as far as possible, and when in exceptional cases a vessel has been sold to a foreigner, a guarantee should be secured that the vessel will be broken up, and steps taken to ensure that the guarantee is observed.