Korda eventually dropped the film, but in 1959 sold the rights to producer Sam Spiegel, who, with David Lean as director, made the epic that sealed Colonel Lawrence's reputation as the great romantic hero of the desert who had led his band of Arab irregulars to victory against the Turks.
The newly released air ministry files also give a fresh insight into why, after the first world war, Lawrence rejected acclaim and, with the help of the chief of the air staff, hid for 12 years as RAF leading aircraftman TE Shaw on pay of three shillings (15p) a day.
The files also offered material for fresh speculation on Lawrence's private life: when stationed at RAF Cranwell he arranged for two shillings out of his daily three shillings to be paid to a Miss Ruby Bryant of 31 Portland Street in Newark upon Trent - a woman not mentioned in any Lawrence biography. The payments lasted from September 1925 to November 1926. On the day they ended, they were replaced by an order to pay 6d (2.5p) a day to another mystery character, WJ Ross of 76 Marsham Street in London, which also continued for year.
Lawrence's medical file reveals that RAF doctors recorded "scars on his buttocks", "three superficial scars on lower part of his back", and "four superficial scars left side". They possibly offer new evidence for his account, which is disputed, of being beaten and raped when captured by the Turks in 1917; however, some could be the result of beatings he paid a soldier to administer while in the Tank Corps after the war.
In a 1934 letter to Sir Philip Sassoon, the junior air minister, Lawrence said that "a film merchant called Korda, has announced that he proposes to make a film called 'Lawrence of Arabia'. Presumably he means me, and I have strong views as to the undesirability of any such film. So I have sent him word that perhaps he ought to discuss his intentions with me before he opens his silly mouth again."
Korda, one of few British film moguls of the 1930s, tried for five years to make the film. Spiegel and Lean's 1962 version, scripted by Robert Bolt, incorporates elements of Korda's screenplay.
The files show that it was the chief of the air staff, Sir Hugh Trenchard, who enabled Lawrence to hide away as a lowly RAF aircraftsman. Elaborate precautions were taken to preserve his anonymity, first as John Hume Ross (which was abandoned when he became known) and then as Thomas Edward Shaw.
Nevertheless, people continued to try to contact him. When one persistent RAF records clerk asked why Lawrence had not answered the letters forwarded to him, he replied: "I do not discuss my part in the war with anyone, nor do I read about it: the whole subject is repulsive."
In later filed correspondence some of his RAF comrades recalled Lawrence, or Ross as they knew him, as "a very quiet sort, who did not smile, drink, swear or express an opinion". AG Turner recalled Lawrence on the parade ground at RAF Uxbridge: "Being very thin, he did not seem to have much strength, and used to fumble with his rifle. The drill sergeant would take it from him, telling him he was like an old woman who'd never had it, and shewed him how to handle the rifle. This used to embarrass Ross very much.
"It was rumoured later that he was Lawrence of Arabia, but we did not believe that. A small thin man like that leading the Arabs! We thought that was a load of bull."
