The War that Never Was

by Duff Hart-Davis

  Within a week of the Humeidat battle, Bernard was back in the Yemen, revisiting the scene. He spent one night halfway up Black Mountain, and got no sleep because of marauding camels; next he went down to the bottom of Wadi Humeidat to lay more mines, denying the Egyptians any further use of the road. By then many of the spoils had been looted, but he inspected the shot-up Egyptian tank, a lorry, a jeep and several armoured personnel carriers, as well as disabled heavy machine guns. In the evening, on the way up the steep side of the wadi, he was fired at four times. ‘Private Yemeni war,’ he noted. ‘Cliff climbing without a moon is NOT FUN.’

  A report on the battle said that the Royalists had enough heavy ammunition to hold up further Egyptian attacks for three or four days, but that fresh supplies were urgently needed. There was a risk that if the Royalists could not sustain their attack, enemy morale – at present very low – would start to recover, and the Egyptians might get a chance to negotiate with possibly hostile tribes. A second danger was that after a battle idle soldiers, especially Bedouin, were inclined to go home or back to their herds – and once that process started, all the Royalist successes could dissipate overnight.

  The Egyptians sought to strike back by flying extra troops down to Hazm, and on 19 May they put in a strong counter-attack, reinforced by one battalion of parachute troops and another of their Saiqa special commandos. By then Hussein had given away many of his heavy weapons, so that when the enemy came over the top of the escarpment onto the plateau, there was little to stop them. The Egyptians captured Red Mountain and got a toe-hold on Black Mountain, but after heavy fighting for three days the tribesmen held out. At a critical moment the Prince showed his mettle: in an act of great courage he roused his troops, led them forward and drove the Egyptians off. The Royalists put their own losses at twenty dead and missing, those of the Egyptians at 200 dead. On 20 May it was reported (falsely) on Radio Sana’a that the Prince had been captured – whereupon Abdullah bin Hassan, in the Khowlan, put out a defiant statement:

  Although the Egyptians may capture our leaders, the Second Royal Army will fight with all they have. Even if we only have jambiyas, we will push the Egyptian invaders into the sea.

  Confused fighting continued throughout May and June, but the victory at Humeidat turned out to be one of the most crucial of the entire civil war, for the gorge remained under Royalist control until the end of 1967, and the Egyptian garrisons in the east and south, on the lower slopes of the mountains and in the desert, had to be supplied entirely by air. Huge bribes in the form of money and rifles were offered to local tribes, in the hope of getting them to harass the Royalist forces, but to no avail.

  In the wadi, as in numerous places elsewhere, dead bodies lay unburied, progressively desiccated by the burning sun. The mercenaries kept coming upon gaunt reminders: a skull half-buried in the ever-shifting surface of the desert, a human hand protruding ‘like a warning from its owner’s sandy grave’,8 or what the eccentric Irish peer Lord Kilbracken memorably called ‘an arm reaching from the sand, to grasp at nothing’.9

  In Jim’s absence abroad, Tony Boyle had written at length to Mac McSweeney, confirming that he was to become the organisation’s man in Aden when Franco (Rupert France) moved to Jeddah. ‘I, personally, am very glad indeed that you will be the liaison between here [London] and the field,’ Tony wrote. He had been greatly impressed by Mac’s proficiency in radio work when they travelled together in the north, and by his ‘powers of friendly persuasion’, which would certainly be needed in his new post. A flat had been rented for him in Plot 115B in Khormaksar, but a note in his file warned that the address was ‘Not to be used on mail or told to anyone going to Aden’.

  Grin, meanwhile, was on his way home, and in his memoirs, published eleven years after the event, he recorded that as he passed through Jeddah, Prince Sultan and Shami asked him ‘to take command of all the mercenaries in the Yemen’. Jim Johnson and Roger Faulques, he wrote, ‘agreed with this proposal’, and after discussing it with his wife he ‘accepted the offer’.10 As reported to members of the BFLF, the news was that Grin had become ‘field commander’ – not overall commander – and it provoked a waspish response from Faulques:

  I hand over to D.S. as field commander? Please make my position clear if I not competent. Billy told different story. Answer ASAP. Please no ballerinas or prima donnas. This not the case.

  Most of the mercenaries, though admiring Grin’s record as a soldier, were irritated by his ceaseless peregrinations, and by his tendency to do things his own way. Soon they began to complain that he gave very little direction and there was no effective command. Their principal loyalty was to Jim, who remained their master and commander – and, as one of them put it in a letter to him from Jeddah, ‘We are seen as a rudderless ship.’ On the ground it was Johnny Cooper who increasingly took the lead in decision-making. At least the mercenaries were spared Grin’s attentions for a few months, for in the autumn he went down with bilharzia in Scotland and was out of action until the second half of October.

  Feuding among the Brits was as nothing compared with the recriminations that flew between Royalist leaders. Changes of mind and failure to carry out agreed plans often raised tempers, but above all it was shortage of money that made rows blaze. ‘You have deprived me of Yacht [an air drop],’ said one furious message. ‘You [the] reason for breakage good plan in this war. I will not cooperate with you. I not responsible now for anything. I do not guarantee your safety. Today AA [Prince Abdullah] took away our last two staff by order . . .’

  By the beginning of June 1965 Franco had completed his move to Jeddah, and informed London that ‘after considerable haggling’ he was well installed in the company’s house, with free accommodation and car and one month’s leave every six months: ‘Nothing in writing so am keeping my fingers crossed.’ The Saudis had also agreed to pay for the accommodation of some of the mercenaries passing through, provided that extra persons in transit stayed at the Red Sea Hotel and did not hang around.

  In fact most of Jim’s recruits stayed in the new house – a spacious, modern building on three floors, with seven bedrooms, a cook (a well-educated, well-spoken Saudi) and a cleaner. In the hot weather people slept out on the roof, and the premises had no form of security; but as the site was well tucked away in a residential area of the city, its openness presented no problem.

  In the eastern Yemen the Royalist forces scored one success after another, capturing Sirwah early in June, then Qaflan, the historical capital of the Hashid tribes, and finally, on 16 July, Marib. By then dislike of the Egyptians had become so widespread that some of the princes believed that sheer hatred offered a basis for collaboration between Royalists, disaffected Republicans and others, and in July, they staged a conference at Taif, in Saudi Arabia.

  Also in July, Tony Boyle made a return visit to Aden to check the BFLF’s arrangements there and in Beihan. He went in some trepidation, aware that his activities during his final days as ADC to the Governor had made him ‘socially a leper’ in the colony, and not sure what the locals’ attitude to the BFLF might he. He was startled when a customs officer asked him if he was coming back to Government House, yet in the event was agreeably surprised by his reception:

  Everyone I met who I knew before invited me to stay or eat or drink with them. This is an enormous relief. The whole attitude towards us is first class. Any help that can be given, will be, and we are certainly on the right side of the fence. The exception of course is the attitude of the few high-ups out there who are unable to acknowledge us.

  On the other hand, he was alarmed by information that he gathered from local Political Officers, who feared that Whiskers, the Sherif of Beihan, chagrined by lack of action from the British Government, was about to leave the Federation and align himself with Saudi Arabia. This (Tony thought) would destroy the Federation and leave the way clear for the Egyptians to take over. He reported that Michael Crouch (one of the Political Officers) ‘and most of the others, are fed up with HM
G’s attitude’.

  They all blame the Egyptians fully, and consider really strenuous action should be taken against them. They mutter about resigning. He is longing for an opportunity, official or unofficial, to crack back at them, and asked if there was any way to co-operate with us. Also asked if he could have a job if he resigned.

  In Aden itself, violence had been steadily increasing: bombs and outbursts of gunfire were becoming everyday events as Nasser orchestrated subversion through the NLF (the National Liberation Front), which was dedicated to evicting the British, and which in turn was fighting for supremacy with a second terrorist organisation, FLOSY (the Front for the Liberation of South Yemen). Terrorist incidents rose from an average of three a month in 1964 to twenty-four a month in 1965, to forty a month in 1966 and to 248 monthly in the first nine months of 1967.

  Tony was dismayed by the condition of his old stamping ground. ‘Aden state is pathetic,’ he wrote: ‘Lorries barred; troops, curfew and road blocks trying to head off the activities of the dissidents; while the vast majority of the population still enjoys a relationship of cheerful banter with the British Forces.’ On the other hand, he was much reassured by the way the mercenary operation was going, and by the general state of the war. His trip left him satisfied that his decision to help David Stirling two years earlier had been correct: senior people in Aden whose opinions he valued now endorsed the BFLF enterprise and offered their support. ‘We now have the initiative in the Yemen, and unattributable support from HMG,’ Tony wrote. ‘Can the Royalists seize this fleeting moment?’

  He was impressed by a new recruit to MI6, known to the mercenaries as Clancy. ‘There is a very good one,’ he wrote. ‘Sound, erudite and amenable to fact.’ When Clancy stressed the importance of keeping the Khowlan team provided with enough cash, Boyle entirely agreed, but pointed out that the problem was ‘a bottomless pit’, and that the inward movement of gold and silver was sluggish in the extreme:

  The lead time for changing the budget has to take account of Jim persuading Shami, Shami convincing Sultan, Sultan giving Shami the money, Jim getting it from Shami, and then, after converting it into locally acceptable currency, getting it through the Egyptian lines and through ambivalent tribes who are looking out for any windfall they can engineer before it gets to the team who are spending it – possibly up to six months.

  Clancy invited Tony to stay with him in Nuqub, and agreed in advance that when they both flew from Aden to Beihan, they would not recognise each other on the aircraft. Then on the flight they found they had been allocated adjacent seats – and the MI6 man, abandoning their earlier agreement, opened the conversation by saying that as they were forced to sit next to each other, they might as well use the time profitably. He told Tony that he had recently carried out a personal survey of the Harib airfield, which had been neglected for so long that shrubs had grown on it and mounds of sand had built up around them. He estimated that 300 man-hours, or one day with a bulldozer, would be needed to clear the strip.

  There was news, also, from Marib, which at that stage was still occupied by the Egyptians. When Grin had arrived on a reconnaissance visit, the locals roundabout had run out firing salvos of joy, and the Royalists in the mountains behind loosed off more volleys in reply. The Egyptians in the town, thinking that a large-scale attack was being mounted, started shelling the area with mortars. Within a month Marib was in the hands of the local tribe. A few Egyptians remained on the airfield, but they had burnt their hospital and guest house, and two tanks, and it seemed that the place had been evacuated rather than captured, as a result of pressure from the Jahm and Abeida tribes.

  Returning to London, Tony went straight to the Johnsons’ house to have dinner, then to the House of Commons to see Amery, who ‘quickly absorbed the seriousness of the Aden situation and brought in Duncan Sandys, who was his usual aggressively confident (and unpleasant) self and appeared to ignore everything we said.’

  Early in June 1965 Jim had invited none other than John Woodhouse to visit the Yemen and make a personal assessment of the situation. The Colonel’s decision to show himself above the parapet in the covert operation caused some surprise, for, at the age of forty-three, he had only recently retired from commanding the SAS. In a note to Jim dated 12 June he wrote: ‘I shall be in London on Wed. 16th and will call on you that evening if this is convenient? I am signing off with my present firm on that day so hope I am still wanted!’ A laconic message from London told Mac McSweeney that he ‘joins us in mid-July as second-in-command in the field of operations’ and that he would ‘lead the Khowlan team’.

  Woodhouse’s purpose – in his own words – was ‘to organise guerrilla operations around Sana’a with the aim of forcing the Egyptians to abandon the airfields there’, and his personal ambition was ‘to compel or persuade the Egyptians to withdraw from [the] Yemen’. It may also have been that, as usual, he was looking for a theatre in which the regular SAS might legitimately be deployed and thought the Yemen looked a promising candidate. But he stressed that he acted ‘on his own initiative in a private capacity throughout this period’.

  He planned to remain in the country for a few weeks, at most. He flew to Aden on 25 July, left his passport there for safe-keeping, reached Nuqub three days later and went on by truck to the border, then by camel or on foot. A stickler for recording times of day, departure, arrival and journey length, he noted salient facts about his travels in short, staccato diary entries:

  Arrived West the Khowlan 0100 31 July (nine hours). Remarked camel’s sure-footedness.

  Left without warning 0050 hours 1 Aug. (Ali Hantash inefficient organiser at night). Camel until 0345 to foot of escarpment (at well) arr. 0830 (7½ hours). March to base 1515 hours, arriving 1845 (3½ hours). Max height 7,400 ft. Base 6,600 ft. Total times: truck 7½ hours. Camel and foot: 21 hours.

  The first highlight of his trip was an Israeli air-drop, which he witnessed on the night of 14–15 August. The moon (he recorded) was two days past full, and the weather was 6/8 cloud at about 2,000 feet above ground-level. The aircraft came in from the direction of Sana’a without any radio contact, and was overhead at 0055. Seventeen boxes, each on three parachutes, landed within 150 yards of the T-shaped light formation, and by 0315 the DZ party had collected them all. ‘Items received’ included twelve Bren guns, ten bazookas, twelve Sten guns, fifty-two anti-tank mines, three different types of firing device (one kind chemical), 26,000 rounds of .303 ammunition, 200 bazooka rockets, twelve pistols, 250 pounds of plastic explosive, 500 yards of cortex fuse, and safety-fuse delays, besides cans of fruit, carrots, baked beans, peas and beer, and three bottles each of cognac and whisky.11 Woodhouse was so impressed by the skill of the pilot that he later sent him a little framed account of the occasion as a memento.

  In a report for Jim written on 19 August he said he had been struck by the ‘total absence of any organised intelligence’ in the mercenary ranks, and also by the need for a good interpreter. The team would never be able to ‘persuade, cajole and insinuate’ unless a fluent Arabic-speaker was present.

  His other major excitement was a reconnaissance of the Sana’a front, made from Mustang, the mercenary station in Wadi Heera’an, which runs east–west, at one point only 35 miles due north of Sana’a, but separated from it by formidable mountains. At Mustang he fell in with Gassim Monassir – not a member of the royal family, but the most aggressive of all the Royalist commanders, and a leader of exceptional ability, much admired for his courage.

  Tall and taciturn, with a swarthy complexion and the curly hair of Negro ancestors, Gassim emphasised his military bearing by wearing a British Army pullover under crossed bandoliers. Having once been a sergeant in the Imam’s bodyguard, he had won the unquestioned obedience, affection and respect of his men by his example and his dominating personality. Woodhouse thought that he had ‘no personal political ambitions, but is a simple, intensely patriotic soldier with considerable ability in guerrilla operations’.12 Other Westerners saw him as an A
rabian Robin Hood and recorded that, unlike some commanders who appeared to chew qat all night and sleep all day, he was setting a fine example.

  At first the local commander-in-chief, Abdullah bin Hassan, made difficulties about going forward to meet Gassim, claiming that his camels were sick and that the tribes en route were hostile; but after a few days’ delay the expedition went ahead, and from an observation point 8,000 feet above sea-level the party looked down on the Egyptian forward positions covering the capital. Woodhouse recorded:

  Walked to Gassim Monassir. Arrived 1030. Typical reaction of front-line soldier. Dubious – weighing us up – what use might we be? He had no way of expecting our arrival. Showed us who was boss from the start. Small arms fire heard soon after our arrival.

  He had walkie-talkie radio to his forward positions. Ate grapes while he decided to show us round. He rode a pony, we walked, preceded by barefoot bugler calling at intervals – splendidly feudal. Walked for 1¾ hours at speed to forward positions. Long talks and first-class view at five miles’ range of Sana’a from NNE and Sana’a North airfield to the west of us. Eight MiGs and a few transports, one large.