Aden Asnag This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. UKMAMS Khormaksar

   www.ukmams-oba.lweb.net/Khorma - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/6/2001   Last Visited: 8/5/2002

   In 1839, a party of Royal Marines landed in Aden to put an end to the pirates who were harassing British ships. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Aden became the main bunkering station for ships sailing to and from India. A sizeable British garrison was created to protect the southern end of the Canal. For the next 95 years an Aden posting was to be a bleak prospect for any British servicemen sent there. After the loss of the Canal in 1956, Aden became the main British base for both the Far and Middle Eastern interests.
   
   By 1961 the Arabs in the Aden Protectorate and the Aden Colony believed that British rule would soon be over in Southern Arabia. President Nasser of Egypt encouraged the Arab peoples of South Arabia to cast out the British Colonial rulers. Aden consisted of two areas: firstly the Aden Colony - 70 square miles of rock and sand. In this area was the port of Aden, RAF Khormaksar, the BP oil refinery, Little Aden and the infamous Crater District accommodating seven hundred thousand Arabs These areas surrounded a deep water harbour set in an extinct volcano.
   
   The second area was called the Aden Protectorate, about the size of England and split into two parts, the Eastern and the Western Protectorates. These Protectorates were crossed by two major roads. One road headed towards the British base at Dhala while the other ran into Yemen. The Dhala road was fiercely contested between local warring Arabs, British troops and the NLF who used the road to smuggle arms into Aden. When the Aden Protectorate was established in the 19th century, the British government had quite successfully banded together the various Sheikhs of the area. The hope was a united Arab force that would protect Aden from the neighbouring countries of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. This small army was made up of Arabs commanded by British officers mostly from the RAF regiment.
   
   In 1958 Nasser formed the United Arab Republic with Syria and Yemen. The Imam of Yemen claimed that Aden belonged to Yemen and Nasser backed a Yemeni campaign of turning Arabs in the Protectorate against their Sheikhs. The British countered this by convincing the Sheikhs to make an alliance and join together to form the South Arabian Federation which would govern Aden once the British left.
   
   The BP refinery in Aden had been built in 1954 and after the loss of the Suez Canal was heavily expanded. The new larger labour force for the refinery came mostly from Yemen.
   ...
   In Aden Asnag and his followers greeted news of the coup with much happiness and demanded the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Aden so that the country could join the new Yemeni Republic.
   
   The ousted Albadr fled to Saudi Arabia where he gained support from the Saudi King who was very alarmed by the socialist outbreaks along his borders. With money from the Saudi King, Albadr bought weapons and started a guerrilla campaign against the forces of General Sallal and his Egyptian forces. As well as weapons, Albadr was offered the services of one Major John Copper (formerly 22 Sqn SAS) to help train his guerrilla bands. Copper was one of the original members of David Sterling's L Detachment in 1942, which later became the SAS. Copper and other former members of the SAS made the Yemeni mountains a very unpleasant place for Egyptians soldiers.
   
   While this guerrilla war was taking place in Yemen, the "Voice of Arab Radio " was broadcasting anti-British propaganda to the people of Aden. The British government started to draw up plans for the withdrawal from Aden, setting the date for January 1968. The government also started to organize the still loyal Sheikhs to form a Federation to run the country after the British withdrew. Asnag, on the other hand, had other ideas for the country after the British left. He wanted to form a Socialist Republic. His group was called People's Socialist Party ( PSP ), later turned into the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen or FLOSY for short . Members of FLOSY were made up of Aden townspeople. The National Liberation Front (NLF), the other organization seeking power, was made up of Yemeni tribesmen from the hills. Both FLOSY and the NLF wanted the British out and their party to take over Aden. Thus the battle lines were drawn.
   
   These leaflets, produced by either FLOSY or the NLF, were often left in conspicuous places, possibly by Arab batmen.
   
   Rough translation "Lightning will break the chains of British oppression. The filthy British are squeezing the blood out of our Arab brothers and then feeding, jackal-like, on their blood."
   
   ...
   Parked just a few hundred yards away from us as we worked away on the Bevs and the Britannias were about 6 V-Bombers that had been specially deployed into Aden. They were under heavy RAF Regiment guard so no one could get near them. Their tail fins were silhouetted against the setting sun. This was no exercise, this was for real!
   
   They were on a moment's notice to carry their cargoes to secret destinations. I remember remarking to a colleague that we might not have even have a country to go home to, let alone a home.
   ...
   Geordie Daverson did his basic Movements training with me at Kidbrooke and we served 2 years in Aden together.
   ...
   It was, I suppose, early in 1963 that I found myself clambering aboard a troopship (I think it was the "Nevasa"), as OC RAF en-route for Aden with a party of green young airmen. I use the term advisedly because the Army, always kind to its sister Service, had decided to stow them in the pointy bit. Their reasoning became clear as we ploughed through a stormy Bay of Biscay !
   
   Our first view of Aden did not altogether fill us with joy, a first impression which was to prove only too accurate in the years ahead. I booked into the HQ MEC Mess and was duly allocated my cell. As a form of greeting I found myself sandblasted by a sandstorm which, on later inspection, proved to have found its way even into my drawers, of both varieties!
   
   The working day on the Joint Movements Planning Staff, which had special responsibility for the MAMS Teams, started at seven and ended at one (or thereabouts) whereafter the sensible ones made their way to the Club and bathed both insides and out with suitable liquid.
   
   In due course I was joined by my family and we found ourselves in a hot-box flatlet on Murder Mile, alias the Maalla Strait.
   ...
   I had had some experience in Singapore running the Changi Theatre Club and had been headhunted to stage shows in Aden, this we did in the Khormaksar School. With a company about sixty strong, service, civilian, wives and camp followers we managed to stage three productions in the next three years. All Gilbert and Sullivan, the first was "The Sorcerer" which ran for six nights in November 63. This was followed in '64 by "Ruddigore" (or "The Witch's Curse") and, by courtesy of Bridgit D'Oyly Carte, presented the operetta in its original form using the old F Copy musical scores which she loaned me. Then, in February 1965, came "The Pirates of Penzance."
   ...
   The heat and smells of Aden hit me in the face like a brick wall - it was so overpowering. Having never left the temperate shores of the UK before, and certainly never having experienced anything quite so foreign, it literally took my breath away. I recall that I was wearing a wool suit, most inappropriate for these climes, but I was very, very green and hadn't a clue what would be facing me.
   
   I suppose I went through some formal arrival procedures, but I cannot recall what they involved. I was put on a bus - something strange here, all of the windows had meshed metal screens on them. I was pleasantly surprised by the transit accommodations of the Red Sea Hotel - not a bit like the usual RAF home-away-from-home.
   ...
   I had two days in Aden before continuing my journey, and I spent the time exploring the streets. It being a duty-free port, there was an abundance of every imaginable type of consumer luxury item available for sale. Electronics, cameras, jewellery, perfumes and watches seemed to be everywhere. There were mini-markets with the smells of spices and foreign produce hitherto unbeknown to me.
   
   The heat was unbearable - it must have been over 100 degrees, and it was amplified by all the white-washed concrete of the buildings. The thing I noticed most were all of the armed British troops patrolling the streets, either in armour-plated vehicles, or standing in groups of three at every street corner.
   ...
   Apart from the fact that it was all very different and foreign to every one of my senses, I did not care for Aden. I pitied those people who had to stay in this arid and inhospitable place for a whole year or more; there would be many who would never return to the cool green shores of Great Britain...
   
   It was a great relief when it was time for me to depart - I was delivered to the Air Movements departure lounge at Khormaksar before boarding the Argosy that would take me to Salalah in Oman. A surprise awaited me in the lounge - there was an associate from my high school days (in Caldicot, Wales), helping to process the outbound passengers. Corporal Gillian Dodd, RAF Police, was searching all of the baggage prior to it being loaded. Her khaki uniform was soaking wet with perspiration and it was only 6:30 in the morning.
   ...
   The imminent withdrawal of British troops from Aden had meant t

2. 2. UKMAMS Khormaksar

   ukmams-oba.lweb.net/Khormaksar - [Cached]

   Published on: 9/20/2001   Last Visited: 6/26/2002

   In 1839, a party of Royal Marines landed in Aden to put an end to the pirates who were harassing British ships. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Aden became the main bunkering station for ships sailing to and from India. A sizeable British garrison was created to protect the southern end of the Canal. For the next 95 years an Aden posting was to be a bleak prospect for any British servicemen sent there. After the loss of the Canal in 1956, Aden became the main British base for both the Far and Middle Eastern interests.
   
   By 1961 the Arabs in the Aden Protectorate and the Aden Colony believed that British rule would soon be over in Southern Arabia. President Nasser of Egypt encouraged the Arab peoples of South Arabia to cast out the British Colonial rulers. Aden consisted of two areas: firstly the Aden Colony - 70 square miles of rock and sand. In this area was the port of Aden, RAF Khormaksar, the BP oil refinery, Little Aden and the infamous Crater District accommodating seven hundred thousand Arabs These areas surrounded a deep water harbour set in an extinct volcano.
   
   The second area was called the Aden Protectorate, about the size of England and split into two parts, the Eastern and the Western Protectorates. These Protectorates were crossed by two major roads. One road headed towards the British base at Dhala while the other ran into Yemen. The Dhala road was fiercely contested between local warring Arabs, British troops and the NLF who used the road to smuggle arms into Aden. When the Aden Protectorate was established in the 19th century, the British government had quite successfully banded together the various Sheikhs of the area. The hope was a united Arab force that would protect Aden from the neighbouring countries of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. This small army was made up of Arabs commanded by British officers mostly from the RAF regiment.
   
   In 1958 Nasser formed the United Arab Republic with Syria and Yemen. The Imam of Yemen claimed that Aden belonged to Yemen and Nasser backed a Yemeni campaign of turning Arabs in the Protectorate against their Sheikhs. The British countered this by convincing the Sheikhs to make an alliance and join together to form the South Arabian Federation which would govern Aden once the British left.
   
   The BP refinery in Aden had been built in 1954 and after the loss of the Suez Canal was heavily expanded. The new larger labour force for the refinery came mostly from Yemen.
   ...
   In Aden Asnag and his followers greeted news of the coup with much happiness and demanded the immediate withdrawal of British troops from Aden so that the country could join the new Yemeni Republic.
   
   The ousted Albadr fled to Saudi Arabia where he gained support from the Saudi King who was very alarmed by the socialist outbreaks along his borders. With money from the Saudi King, Albadr bought weapons and started a guerrilla campaign against the forces of General Sallal and his Egyptian forces. As well as weapons, Albadr was offered the services of one Major John Copper (formerly 22 Sqn SAS) to help train his guerrilla bands. Copper was one of the original members of David Sterling's L Detachment in 1942, which later became the SAS. Copper and other former members of the SAS made the Yemeni mountains a very unpleasant place for Egyptians soldiers.
   
   While this guerrilla war was taking place in Yemen, the "Voice of Arab Radio " was broadcasting anti-British propaganda to the people of Aden. The British government started to draw up plans for the withdrawal from Aden, setting the date for January 1968. The government also started to organize the still loyal Sheikhs to form a Federation to run the country after the British withdrew. Asnag, on the other hand, had other ideas for the country after the British left. He wanted to form a Socialist Republic. His group was called People's Socialist Party ( PSP ), later turned into the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen or FLOSY for short . Members of FLOSY were made up of Aden townspeople. The National Liberation Front (NLF), the other organization seeking power, was made up of Yemeni tribesmen from the hills. Both FLOSY and the NLF wanted the British out and their party to take over Aden. Thus the battle lines were drawn.
   
   These leaflets, produced by either FLOSY or the NLF, were often left in conspicuous places, possibly by Arab batmen.
   
   Rough translation "Lightning will break the chains of British oppression. The filthy British are squeezing the blood out of our Arab brothers and then feeding, jackal-like, on their blood."
   
   ...
   Parked just a few hundred yards away from us as we worked away on the Bevs and the Britannias were about 6 V-Bombers that had been specially deployed into Aden. They were under heavy RAF Regiment guard so no one could get near them. Their tail fins were silhouetted against the setting sun. This was no exercise, this was for real!
   
   They were on a moment's notice to carry their cargoes to secret destinations. I remember remarking to a colleague that we might not have even have a country to go home to, let alone a home.
   ...
   Geordie Daverson did his basic Movements training with me at Kidbrooke and we served 2 years in Aden together.
   ...
   It was, I suppose, early in 1963 that I found myself clambering aboard a troopship (I think it was the "Nevasa"), as OC RAF en-route for Aden with a party of green young airmen. I use the term advisedly because the Army, always kind to its sister Service, had decided to stow them in the pointy bit. Their reasoning became clear as we ploughed through a stormy Bay of Biscay !
   
   Our first view of Aden did not altogether fill us with joy, a first impression which was to prove only too accurate in the years ahead. I booked into the HQ MEC Mess and was duly allocated my cell. As a form of greeting I found myself sandblasted by a sandstorm which, on later inspection, proved to have found its way even into my drawers, of both varieties!
   
   The working day on the Joint Movements Planning Staff, which had special responsibility for the MAMS Teams, started at seven and ended at one (or thereabouts) whereafter the sensible ones made their way to the Club and bathed both insides and out with suitable liquid.
   
   In due course I was joined by my family and we found ourselves in a hot-box flatlet on Murder Mile, alias the Maalla Strait.
   ...
   I had had some experience in Singapore running the Changi Theatre Club and had been headhunted to stage shows in Aden, this we did in the Khormaksar School. With a company about sixty strong, service, civilian, wives and camp followers we managed to stage three productions in the next three years. All Gilbert and Sullivan, the first was "The Sorcerer" which ran for six nights in November 63. This was followed in '64 by "Ruddigore" (or "The Witch's Curse") and, by courtesy of Bridgit D'Oyly Carte, presented the operetta in its original form using the old F Copy musical scores which she loaned me. Then, in February 1965, came "The Pirates of Penzance."
   ...
   The heat and smells of Aden hit me in the face like a brick wall - it was so overpowering. Having never left the temperate shores of the UK before, and certainly never having experienced anything quite so foreign, it literally took my breath away. I recall that I was wearing a wool suit, most inappropriate for these climes, but I was very, very green and hadn't a clue what would be facing me.
   
   I suppose I went through some formal arrival procedures, but I cannot recall what they involved. I was put on a bus - something strange here, all of the windows had meshed metal screens on them. I was pleasantly surprised by the transit accommodations of the Red Sea Hotel - not a bit like the usual RAF home-away-from-home.
   ...
   I had two days in Aden before continuing my journey, and I spent the time exploring the streets. It being a duty-free port, there was an abundance of every imaginable type of consumer luxury item available for sale. Electronics, cameras, jewellery, perfumes and watches seemed to be everywhere. There were mini-markets with the smells of spices and foreign produce hitherto unbeknown to me.
   
   The heat was unbearable - it must have been over 100 degrees, and it was amplified by all the white-washed concrete of the buildings. The thing I noticed most were all of the armed British troops patrolling the streets, either in armour-plated vehicles, or standing in groups of three at every street corner.
   ...
   Apart from the fact that it was all very different and foreign to every one of my senses, I did not care for Aden. I pitied those people who had to stay in this arid and inhospitable place for a whole year or more; there would be many who would never return to the cool green shores of Great Britain...
   
   It was a great relief when it was time for me to depart - I was delivered to the Air Movements departure lounge at Khormaksar before boarding the Argosy that would take me to Salalah in Oman. A surprise awaited me in the lounge - there was an associate from my high school days (in Caldicot, Wales), helping to process the outbound passengers. Corporal Gillian Dodd, RAF Police, was searching all of the baggage prior to it being loaded. Her khaki uniform was soaking wet with perspiration and it was only 6:30 in the morning.
   ...
   The imminent withdrawal of British troops from Aden had meant t