14 Issue No. 42 I joined up some years ago after Colonel Mike Mitchell, (‘Mad Mitch’) and the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders had moved into the Crater District of Aden in 1967. It was the first time that television had broadcast live, or very nearly live pictures of an operational area and this had a profound effect on me. I was brought up on Errol Flynn and Saturday morning film heroes and to see live heroes actually going into action with bagpipes and an officer strolling along with a walking stick-to protect him, was to me the epitome of bravery and the true picture of the British Bulldog spirit. I had joined up in November 1967 and by the summer of 1968 was LAC in the RAF Regiment, up to that date it was my greatest achievement. Having taken on everything that could be thrown at me and passed, being presented with my RAF Regiment shoulder flashes was a moment to savour. I was posted to the best Squadron in the RAF Regiment, Number 51 Squadron, at RAF Catterick and was assigned to the Support Wing Flight for Mortar training. My Flight Sergeant was S Flynn (who I am glad to say is a member of Catterick and District Branch), who after some ‘homely chats and sidelong glances’, got me trained up in the duties of Mortarman. The Squadron had roulemont duties at Bahrein in the Persian Gulf and it was there that the Squadron moved with LAC Magee in tow. Our main duty was to patrol the airfield at RAF Muharrag, which at that time was both the civil and military airport for the area. We made patrols in Landrovers on the perimeter track and of the radar Memories of Salalah in Muscat and Oman installations and domestic areas’ of the camp, 24 hours a day, keeping a steely eye out for anyone taking a short cut out across the runway, or generally breathing in a suspicious manner. We had the only vehicle in the RAF Regiment that could turn left all on its own, as all our patrols were made in an anticlockwise direction. This was not what I thought our roles were going to be. Where were the bagpipes and the officers with swagger sticks? After 10 weeks of boring patrols, I was recalled from patrol one day, with my driver Keith Rawlonsion, (from Coventry) and told that the RAF Police would be taking over our patrol duties and that we were to change into combat kit and along with the rest of the Flight, report to the dispersal area in thirty minutes. There, we were briefed about the mission by the Squadron CO. We were going to an airfield called RAF Salalah, in Oman, to relieve the Station personnel who had come under attack from rebel forces opposed to the Sultan of Oman. We were issued with ammunition and ration packs and then marched over to an Argosy aircraft, in which we were flown some 500 miles around the coastline of Oman, to RAF Salalah, which is in the southernmost part of the country. As we made our approach, we were told to make ready to disembark as quickly as possible. The aircraft taxied along the runway until it approached the nearest dispersal area to the control room tower. We were still some 500 yards from it when the tailgate was lowered and we marched off the plane in two single files, one either side of the aircraft at the high port and with eyes scanning the area for the enemy. The age range of their weapons must have covered at least 200 years, ranging from old 303’s to muskets of the 18th Century. All of which had been heavily inlayed with Ivory and Brass studding. I hoped that I would not be anywhere near to any of them when the time came to fire.
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