This is the story of 2 New Zealander's who started up and successfully ran the first overland Bus Service between Damascus and Baghdad back before WWII when the only routes were tracks across the desert. Gerald and Norman Nairn served in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force to the Middle East that fought the Turks in WWI. After the end of the war, they stayed on in the Middle East and with the division of the old Turkish Empire into French and British protectorates, they jumped into the newly important transportation businesses.

Starting out with steam-car's in the 1920's, they struggled on against political and arab-competitor interference, lack of capital, idiot drivers and managed to overcome or survive every obstacle. They then saw an opportunity in pioneering the 650 mile desert routre from Beirut to Baghdad. Remember that this was before highways, the desert route was camel-tracks, no water, hotter than hell in summer, and with hostile Bedouin tribesman just to add further obstacles (when the Bedouin got to uppity in Iraq, the British used the RAF to bomb and strafe them from the air - no love was lost there).

The Nairns started out with Buick and Cadillac cars, but gradually replaced these with specially designed and built long-distance trucks with air-conditioned passanger trailers and specially-built tropicxal duty tyres. Back before WWII, this route was one of the wonders of the transport world and was heavily used, with trips running overnight every night. This book is as told by Gerald Nairn, who eventually retired back to New Zealand.

The author, J S Tullet, also a New Zealander, served in the Middle East, where he spent 6 years involved in the fight against drug smuggling, based out of the British Military Mission in Beirut, also before and during WWII. He had first hand knowledge himself of many of the people involved in the Nairn Operation as well as of the area through which they operated.

The book is well-written and a fascinating account of one aspect of the Middle-East between the two world wars. Well worth a read if you can lay your hands on a copy and are interested in this kind of thing. Fascinating accounts of the trials and tribulations of running a commercial motor vehicle service across the desert, the technical and other obstacles that they overcame, right down to all the problems they had with running tires for long distances at high speed in the heat of the desert. (Their buses ended up doing the trip at an average of about 60mph which is pretty good for what amounted to cross-country travel that you'd need a 4x4 for these days).