by Pete Scholey
Missiles and artillery pieces have a fascination all of their own, but Bob is a very active sort of man and needed to be doing something that would present him with more of a challenge than the regular day-to-day duties in the artillery ever could. After a year, he volunteered for the Commando Course. The All Arms Commando Course is run by the Royal Marines at the Commando Training Centre in Lympstone. It is a tough, ten-week course that is open to serving personnel from any part of the armed forces. The course teaches basic skills to a high level as well as providing more advanced military training in things like amphibious assaults and helicopter drills. A bit like SAS Selection, only those with the mental and physical strength to win through will make it. At the most basic level, applicants will be expected to perform a 9-mile (14.5km) speed march carrying at least 30lb (13.6kg) of kit in 90 minutes. There is a 12-mile (19.3km) cross-country yomp (long-distance march) in full kit, carrying a 12lb (5.5kg) rifle. That has to be completed in less than four hours. Every part of the various assault courses come with a time limit attached. Bob not only passed with flying colours, he broke four Commando Course endurance records in the process. He was posted to 95 Commando Light Regiment (RA), where one of his instructors was Ginge Tyler, who had recently left the SAS.
Ginge did, without a doubt, influence Bob’s decision to apply for SAS Selection, but for someone like Bob, who wanted to be the best soldier he possibly could be, the lure of the SAS challenge would always have been too great to resist. Bob made it through Selection in 1970, joining G Squadron in August. By the time he celebrated his 21st birthday, he was on active service in Oman during Operation Storm.
The SAS has had a long-standing, on-off love affair with southern Arabia both in official and semi-official capacities ever since the end of the Malayan campaign. In October 1958, as the situation in Malaya was being brought under control, D Squadron was pulled out of the humid heat of the jungle to begin a hectic period of retraining to tackle the arid heat of the desert in the Sultanate of Oman. They had just two weeks to get themselves operational with tactics and equipment more suited to their new environment. An attempt was being made to overthrow the sultan and, since he enjoyed the friendship of the British government, steps had to be taken to provide him with protection. A protection treaty had been signed with the Sultan of Muscat (which became part of Oman) in 1789 that gave the British East India Company commercial rights in Oman in exchange for the Royal Navy providing protection from the pirates who roamed the coast plundering the sultan’s trading vessels. Britain maintained the relationship with Oman through the reigns of several different sultans up to the 1950s, when Sultan Said bin Taimur, the 13th hereditary ruler of Oman, sat on the throne.
At the time, Britain was following a policy of withdrawing from colonial entanglements in favour of allowing emerging nations the right to self-determination, the right of the people to choose their own governments and their own leaders. Sultan Said bin Taimur was not typical of the new breed of statesmen Britain preferred to see taking their place on the world stage. He did, however, have a couple of very persuasive bargaining tools when it came to retaining the support of Her Majesty’s Government. The first was the fact that in 1958 there were a number of oil companies punching holes in the desert crust searching for the black gold. It seemed only a matter of time before they found some. The second was a place called the Musandam peninsula. This is the most north-easterly part of Oman and it sticks out into the Straits of Hormuz. Even if the oil companies never found any oil in Oman (which they did eventually), Musandam commanded a vitally important strategic position, as tankers carrying around half of the western world’s oil supplies filed past its rugged shoreline every day.
Although the sultan had British officers and British-trained Omani officers running his armed forces, was supplied with British military hardware, had British troops training in his country and employed the very British Colonel David Smiley as his chief of staff, the British didn’t feel that they could be seen to be providing him with battalions of British soldiers to guard his borders. With the Suez debacle also a recent memory, they certainly didn’t want the world’s press to start running stories about British soldiers being massacred in the mountains of Oman. And it was in the mountains where the trouble was brewing. On the Jebel Akhdar, or ‘Green Mountain’, a plateau around 10,000ft (3,000m) high covering an area of some 200 square miles (518 square km), a well-armed force of between 600 and 700 rebels had taken control and had started making forays down onto the coastal plain. They planted mines that destroyed scores of vehicles, including 18 British Ferret armoured scout cars. They were causing the sultan’s forces all sorts of problems, not least because their mountain stronghold was notoriously impregnable.
The rebels also had a religious leader, the Imam Ghalib bin Ali of Oman, as their figurehead. Becoming embroiled in a war against Islam was not thought to be a good idea by the British, especially as the imam had backing from Saudi Arabia. The Saudis had been involved in territorial disputes with the sultan, especially over Musandam, for years and the last thing the British wanted was a major confrontation with Saudi Arabia. The solution was to send in the SAS to seize key objectives on the jebel without attracting too much attention from the outside world. D Squadron, led by Major Johnny Watts, started the job in November 1958 and was joined by A Squadron under Major John Cooper in January 1959. A tough time was had by all but the rebels were cleared from the jebel in just ten weeks and the immediate threat to the sultan subsided.
The sultan, it has to be said, was not a terribly popular man. He lived a life of luxury, seldom leaving his palace in Salalah, while the majority of his people lived in abject poverty and fear. Villagers were not allowed to leave their own town without permission from the sultan, even if they were only going looking for work. There was no proper education system, so those who wanted to attend a proper school or university fled the country, many travelling to Eastern European Soviet Bloc states. There was no proper medical care, so people suffered from complaints that simple antibiotics could cure. No one was allowed to wear Western clothes, listen to Western music or to take photographs. The sultan ruled with a rod of iron, yet his people never actually saw him. To be caught defying his laws, however, meant a flogging or being flung into prison. Because of the strategically important land that it occupied and the oil that lay beneath that land, however, Britain had to keep Oman as its friend, even if that meant being nice to the sultan.
Their first Omani adventure in 1958–59 proved that the SAS could operate as an adaptable, low-profile, quick-reaction force to be deployed anywhere in the world under any conditions at a moment’s notice. They had successfully transferred from the jungle to the desert and combined with forces already in the area to resolve a situation that had stood every chance of blowing up into a major confrontation.
In Oman, things returned more or less to normal. The poor people stayed poor and the sultan stayed in his palace, but the military planners in the SAS, the ‘Head Shed’, had no doubts that they would be back in the country eventually. In Aden, bordering the southern Omani province of Dhofar, the build-up to the British withdrawal from the colony had precipitated a power struggle that was causing serious security problems. When the hereditary ruler of Yemen, Imam Ahmad bin Yahya, died in 1962, his son, Crown Prince Muhammad al-Badr, barely had time to warm the cushion on his father’s throne before he was deposed in a military coup. The army officers were backed by President Nasser of Egypt, who poured troops and military hardware into Yemen to suppress the crown prince’s supporters. The crown prince and his men took to the hills and continued to fight as a guerrilla force. The Egyptian, Soviet and Chinese support for the new regime was worrying for the British, who fully realized that Yemen’s intention was to take over Aden when they left. This would then put the Yemenis in an ideal situation to threaten Oman, where the sultan’s repressive regime made the country ripe for revolution.
A covert presence was required in Yemen to supply intelligence bot
h to the British commanders in Aden and to keep Britain appraised of the threat level to Oman. It was decided to supply clandestine support to the crown prince’s guerrilla fighters in the form of a small mercenary group who would be able to set up a communications and intelligence network. The plan did not have the official support of the British government, but the man asked to organize the mercenary force was none other than the founding father of the SAS, David Stirling. Stirling recruited a number of former SAS officers and men, including John Cooper who had recently led A Squadron in Oman. Cooper had, in fact, been Stirling’s driver during the SAS desert campaign in World War II. At one point, the man in command of the mercenary force was Colonel David Smiley, formerly the Sultan of Oman’s chief of staff. The crown prince’s force also had the backing of the Saudis, the idea of a communist republic sweeping aside an ancient monarchy making them more than a little nervous. Having the Saudis on side, of course, meant that John Cooper and David Smiley were now working with their old enemies from Oman. There was little chance that the royalist guerrillas could defeat the might of the Egyptians, but they did tie down over 55,000 Egyptian troops and a substantial part of Nasser’s air force for five years, assets that were sorely needed during Egypt’s Six-Day War with Israel in 1967. The Egyptian military would later refer to Yemen as ‘our Vietnam’.
What all of this meant was that when Bob and the rest of G Squadron arrived in Oman in 1970, the SAS high command had a very good idea of who the opposition were and the tactics they would adopt. What they needed to know was the enemy strength and how tenaciously it would fight to retain the mountain strongholds. Bob had transferred to A Squadron by the time he was first sent out on a probing mission on the Jebel north of Mirbat early in 1971. The operation involved both A and B Squadrons, split into small groups to reconnoitre the target area.
Bob’s group included his good friend the redoubtable Fijian Talaiasi Labalaba (see chapter 12) and after a hard slog through the foothills of the jebel, they finally made contact with the enemy Adoo. Approaching an exposed section of hillside, Bob and Laba slowed to scan the area ahead. The sun-blasted waves of scraggy scrub and crumbling rock looked no different from the miles of parched ground they had already covered, but they both had the feeling that they were being watched, the haunting sensation that raises the hairs on the back of your neck and tightens the stomach muscles. Suddenly, a tattoo of gunfire shattered the mountain air and the patrol threw itself behind whatever cover it could find. Scouring the mountainside for targets, Bob picked out a flicker of movement among the rocks and immediately raked the area with a burst from his General-Purpose Machine-Gun (GPMG; the British Army version of the FN MAG). The others sent two- and three-round volleys in the general direction of the enemy, but the Adoo had chosen their fire positions well and were frustratingly difficult to pinpoint. From the number of rifle and machine-gun rounds that were hammering into the boulders around them, however, it was obvious to Bob that the small SAS patrol was heavily outgunned. It was also clear that they could not afford to hold their ground and risk being outflanked. They had to fall back to a more secure position.
Bob provided covering fire with the GPMG as the patrol began to withdraw. The Adoo, believing they had the upper hand, started moving forward, breaking cover to chase the SAS off the hillside. Bob saw several who appeared to go down under the hail of fire from his GPMG and the deadly accurate rounds squeezed off by Laba and the others. If the Adoo were following, however, he would leave a few surprises for them. As they fell back, Bob planted booby traps to slow up their pursuers. Hand grenades balanced delicately amid piles of stones or strung with trip wires had the desired effect. By the time the group reached a more easily defended position, the Adoo had given up the chase. Bob’s patrol had been forced off the mountain, but they had established that the enemy held the area in strength and had left behind a number of dead and wounded Adoo in their wake.
The SAS planners knew that to counter the insurgents they would need more than just firepower: they would need the Omani people on their side. This, in turn, meant that Bob, highly trained in the use of everything from battlefield tactical nuclear weapons to Cherry Blossom boot polish, had to learn a whole new kind of soldiering. During Operation Storm, the Regiment was to embark on a major ‘hearts and minds’ programme, made possible by a drastic change in the country’s leadership.
The same sort of violent unrest, encouraged and supported by Yemen, that had flared up in the late 1950s had returned to Oman in the mid-1960s. The sultan’s own bodyguards attempted to assassinate him in 1966, and in 1967, when the British left Aden, the warring factions in that territory needed only a little time to settle their differences before devoting their full attention to Oman. In a bold move in July 1970, the Wali (governor) of Dhofar Province arrived at the palace in Salalah, insisting on seeing the sultan. He had come to demand the old man’s abdication and had the support of the sultan’s son, Qaboos, along with a number of high-ranking British officers in the SAF. The sultan, fearing that the wali’s visit signalled another assassination attempt, armed himself with a pistol. He blasted away at the wali, wounding him and unfortunately killing one of his own servants as well. The old man also managed to wound himself in the foot and the stomach before he could be overpowered. The sultan spent the rest of his life in exile in London while his son, Qaboos, became His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
Educated at a private school in England, and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, Qaboos made an immediate radio broadcast to his people stating that: ‘I promise you to proceed forthwith in the process of creating a modern government. My first act will be the immediate abolition of all the unnecessary restrictions on your lives and activities.’
He was as good as his word and the SAS was there to spearhead his reforms. Before the new schools and hospitals, roads and houses could be built, Bob and the others were there on the ground implementing the SAS’s five-pronged plan of attack.
First of all, they had to let the people of Oman know that there was a new sultan and that he was about to bring about great changes in their lives. The SAS carried out leaflet drops with the Omani air force and even handed out small radios so that people could hear Qaboos’ broadcasts. They made sure that as many rebel tribesmen as possible came to hear that they were being offered an amnesty and could surrender without fear of reprisals.
Then they had to establish a programme of medical aid, SAS medics working with a newly appointed government medical officer to bring basic health care to thousands of Omanis living in the mountains. More important to some of the people than their own health, however, was the well-being of their livestock. With the help of the RAF, the SAS flew in two Hereford bulls to help improve Omani breeding stock. Agricultural aid also involved bringing in specialist equipment to drill for water or open up defunct wells that the old sultan had concreted over to punish errant villagers.
On the military front, Oman needed an intelligence network not only to keep tabs on the many enemy fighters, but also to monitor propaganda broadcasts by the Yemenis on Radio Aden and find ways to counter it. Finally, the SAS had to raise and train local units to fight for Qaboos against the Adoo. Many of these local soldiers were former Adoo who were promised amnesty if they changed sides to support Qaboos. Since it was his predecessors with whom they had had a problem and Qaboos was now instigating widespread reforms, recruits from among the Adoo came in thick and fast, as much tempted by the £50 reward they were offered for handing over their old Kalashnikovs as they were driven by political ideals.
The SAS ‘hearts and minds’ campaign worked well in Oman, and special efforts were made in the border territory of Dhofar, the main area of SAS deployment in Operation Storm. Like the rest of the SAS in the region, Bob’s duties extended beyond simply training the Firquat – they also joined the Firquat, and other regular troops loyal to the sultan, on patrols. One such operation took place in March 1972.
The Wadi Derbat had been identified as harbouring an A
doo stronghold and the plan was that A Squadron would lead one group into the wadi from the south while D Squadron came in from the north, forming a pincer in which the rebel force would be trapped. Having closed on the suspected Adoo positions, however, there were no rebels to be found. The men gathered at a point on the eastern edge of the wadi and patrols were organized to scout the surrounding area and pinpoint the location of the Adoo. Bob set off as part of one of the patrols, heading for a village that lay in the shadow of a hill called Ghaday at the head of the Wadi Nahiz. Picking their way carefully along a rough mountain track in daylight, very much aware that should they be the ones to discover the Adoo headquarters, the mountain tribesmen would easily be able to spot their approach, the tension mounted. The temperature soared as the Arabian sun scorched the landscape.
Then they heard it – the unmistakable zing of incoming rounds and the eruption of rifle and machine-gun fire. The patrol went to ground, taking cover among the rocks, shouting to each other to pinpoint the source of the gunfire. They returned fire, but appeared to be outgunned. They couldn’t withdraw without exposing themselves to the Adoo machine-gunners, so they called in an air strike, holding their own until the Strikemasters from Salalah came screaming up the wadi. Flames flared under the aircrafts’ wings as they released a barrage of rockets that streaked towards the Adoo positions and exploded in fireballs that were immediately followed by engulfing smoke and dust. The pilots, RAF or ex-RAF flyers on secondment or on contract to the SOAF, then pulled up and swept round to strafe the Adoo with machine-gun fire. The Adoo, having suffered several casualties, withdrew as soon as the planes departed. Bob and the others made their way back to their temporary base in the Wadi to report on the contact. The village beyond Ghaday, it seemed, was where the Adoo had established themselves.
