[1] He was the second pilot chosen to fly the newly designed Handley Page (HP) bomber, and also flew thirty other types of aircraft for over 400 total hours during his career.
Because of the danger of long-distance flying at the time (25 of 51 planes dispatched to the Middle East six months previously had never arrived, and 11 airmen had been killed en route), the use of a torpedo boat to transport Philby was considered, but it was decided that increased speed of the Handley Page (HP) bomber was worth the risk of flight.
Cloud cover also complicated landings at Rome and Taranto, and on several occasions en route the plane nearly struck Italian mountain ranges.
[1] The next day Yates intended to fly directly to Suda Bay, Crete, but a fuel pump malfunction forced an emergency landing in a riverbed 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) east of Aigion.
Locals provided food and assistance (including lifting the aircraft on their shoulders) to repair damage to the plane, which took six hours, after which Yates flew to Athens to refuel.
An engine failed shortly after taking off from Athens, requiring the crew to return and spend 10 hours siphoning and straining all of the fuel from the plane.
On their second attempt, a propeller cracked in-flight and the plane's wing clipped the edge of the volcanic crater in which the crew landed at Suda Bay.
[1] Taking off three times from Suda Bay because of a maladjusted carburetor, in a process Yates described as "riding a motorcycle around the inside of a barrel", the crew headed across the Mediterranean Sea towards Sollum, on the border of Egypt and Libya.
[1] Despite the poor condition of the aircraft, Yates opted to take off for Cairo immediately after refuelling, ordering the airmen to resume hand-pumping the fuel.
[1] On approach to Cairo on 26 June, Yates could not locate the airport, reportedly because circus lights blinded him; Lawrence walked out onto the wing of the plane to be able to see the landing strip.
[1] Yates and his crew were forbidden to speak to journalists in Cairo because of the "political sensitivity of their mission", but all four were nominated for the Air Force Cross by Brigadier-General Salmon.
Yates and Vance returned to their base in England, where their squadron leader had mistakenly listed them as having been killed in a crash in Marseilles; this error had also been published by the Daily Mail and was later included in The Letters of T. E. Lawrence by David Garnett.
[1] George Yates again intervened on his son's behalf with Prime Minister Borden, arguing that Harry's treatment, and that of other Canadian airmen, by RAF authorities was unjust.