The War that Never Was

by Duff Hart-Davis

  a. Our present base in Aden to be closed down.

  b. A similar base to be opened in Jeddah.

  c. The establishment of radio stations in Saudi Arabia at Najran and Jizan, and later on Bishra airstrip.

  d. An increase in the missions in the Yemen from the present six to eleven (including the French).

  e. The London base to continue as before.

  There followed a list of the officers and signallers who would be needed. Jim, one British officer and one secretary would remain in London. Ten British officers, seventeen signallers (one French, two Saudi), fifteen British soldiers (Striking Force) and twenty-six French . . . The headquarters in Jeddah would require a furnished house, two servants and two cars, and the transport would have to include nine Dodge Power Wagons or Ford four-wheel-drive trucks, as well as nine Land Rovers or jeeps. The letter recommended the urgent issue of 120mm mortars and their ammunition as soon as possible: ‘The pre-stocking of 1,000 bombs each at Jizan and Najran should commence immediately.’

  In a private letter from Jeddah, Jim told Judy that he had ‘nearly concluded’ a new contract with Sultan, and that if all went well he was about to buy a seven-bedroomed house, to act as the team’s new base, together with a station wagon and a Chevrolet sedan. As usual Jim was on the lookout for experienced operators, and on 1 April 1966, from London, he wrote a cryptic letter to Bernard Mills, explaining that he had ‘been given every encouragement and told to increase our effort in all directions’.

  You said if ever there was real need for you again, you would consider coming back to us. Well now, there is a need for you, Bernard. Unfortunately the relationships between your late area boss and ourselves have not been good, and in view of his increasing importance I hope you will see your way to coming back, as he has asked for you by name . . .

  Love from all of us here, Jay.

  Bernard duly returned, and on 3 June flew to Jeddah, then on to Najran. Even though Jim’s private army had grown so much, its existence was still cloaked in secrecy; and when Chris Sharma, who had left the organisation (having not had his contract renewed, and having lost all his kit on the way home), asked if he might write an article about his experiences, Jim firmly put the idea down. For months he had been receiving vitriolic criticism of Mansoor’s ‘megalomaniac inefficiency and general immaturity’ from Jack Miller, but now he was too tactful to mention such defects, and he merely deflected the request by more subtle means. ‘I have no real objection to you writing an article, provided of course no mention of us, the firm or parachuting,’ he told Sharma in a letter.

  However I would have thought that you would be very unwise to write an article either signed with your real name or your Arab nom de guerre as, after two years, the Egyptian Intelligence Services must have a large file on both these names, and in view of the fact that they are now paying hard cash for killing civilians and members of the armed forces in Aden, it would not be beyond their powers to get you or a member of your family at your home address.

  Also, as you would be the first person in the group to have written an article like this, you would naturally bring the Press about your ears very quickly, and once this happened, it would be impossible to remain hidden from the EIS [Egyptian Intelligence Services]. I am sorry to be rather a damp blanket on this scheme of yours, but the EIS has a very bad reputation, as you know, and we are dealing in other people’s lives apart from yours, here.

  Grin was still nominally in command of the mercenaries, and early in 1966 he set off on yet another tour, driving his new Toyota – a gift from Feisal – into the semi-desert country of the Jauf, where the few villages consisted of tall houses built from mud rather than the rough-hewn stone that prevailed in the mountains. He found that in some places the Egyptians had changed their tactics from bombing to bribery, and remarked that ‘It is now a war of gold.’

  Yet his authority – such as it was – had begun to falter. The men in the field thought little of him: he was too much of a loner, too old, too pleased with himself. In the words of one, ‘Jim was always the boss, no matter how far away he might be.’ Jim himself had begun to regard Smiley as a rather loose cannon, and tended to ignore his advice; and in May 1966, as a potential replacement, he brought in Lieutenant Colonel Bob Walker-Brown, an officer with a formidable record of action in the Second World War.

  Having been wounded and captured in the Western Desert, he had escaped from an Italian prisoner-of-war camp – a feat for which he received the MBE – returned to Britain and joined 2 SAS. In September 1944 he parachuted as stick commander into the Forest of Châtillon, north of Dijon, and took part in an attack on the German garrison, which inflicted more than 100 casualties. Then in December he dropped into the Italian Apennines and led a conspicuously successful guerrilla raid, for which he was awarded the DSO. After the war he served with both 21 and 22 SAS, and finally commanded 23 SAS.

  Earlier he had earned a reputation for intolerance, and even now, at the age of forty-seven, although he had mellowed, he was known as ‘the Toy Soldier’ or ‘Wobbly’, because every now and then he was liable to throw a burst of temper. Jim, writing to Franco and his team, gave a muted warning:

  He is, as you know, a very positive character and has of course more experience of SAS than any of us. He has changed since we last knew him and the trouble that he had with his stomach when commanding 23 has now all gone (let’s hope so anyway, as you will remember he sacked twenty-two out of the twenty-three officers in his regiment last time).2

  Because Walker-Brown spoke no Arabic, for his first trip into the Yemen, Jim provided him with an interpreter in the form of Dr Philip Horniblow. Between 7 and 22 May, together with one French mercenary, they made a short tour of the Jauf and the Khowlan, which enabled Walker-Brown to write a perceptive – if rather depressing – report on the military and political situation.

  In the Jauf he found Mohamed bin Hussein unhappy at the lack of central leadership, and plagued by subversion among the local tribes. ‘The situation appears to be held together by Saudi payments,’ he wrote – but some tribes were accepting money from the other side as well. What his report did not say was that he started telling Hussein what he should do, and the Prince said he would prefer to take advice from his friend Bernard (who was then in London). The same thing happened when Walker-Brown met the Prime Minister, Hassan bin Yahya.

  In the Khowlan, Abdullah bin Hassan’s main problem was lack of money. He complained that much of his monthly budget was being stolen along the supply route, and he had scarcely enough to bribe Republican tribes. He was also ‘somewhat ungracious’ about the air-drops, which he thought had become redundant – although he had the nerve to suggest that the next parachutage should deliver a whole hospital, complete with prefabricated buildings.

  In his report Walker-Brown suggested that although in the past the psychological effect of the air-drops had been considerable, the Prince was right in thinking that parachuting had become counter-productive, as the local supply of small arms appeared to have reached saturation point, and ‘even small boys of about ten were carrying a Mauser and fifty rounds’. Weapons and ammunition, he believed, had become a substitute for currency, and many weapons were being sold to the Republicans. On the other hand, there was something to be said for increasing the supply of gold.

  As for Gassim Monassir, his small, irregular force of about 300 men was occupying the same exposed position from which John Woodhouse had looked down on Sana’a; and although Walker-Brown formed a high opinion of Gassim’s vigour and courage, he thought that he lacked imagination and basic military knowledge, and was overconfident, ‘even having regard to the low calibre of the enemy’. Another problem was that Gassim’s fame had aroused local jealousy: ‘He has become a military legend, but this is by no means welcome to other leading personalities in the area.’

  All went well with Walker-Brown’s touring party until they reached Gassim’s forward position. There, according to Horniblow, ‘the Royalists decid
ed this was a good moment to demonstrate their prowess and started firing their 81mm mortars’. When retaliatory shells came whistling in, the experienced Walker-Brown dived into a hole, but Horniblow merely got down behind a wall and received a sharp blow from a splinter in one foot. No great damage was done, but he decided to use his only shell dressing on his donkey, which had sustained a splinter in the backside, rather than on himself – reckoning that the most important thing was that the animal should be able to carry him on the first stage of the journey back to civilisation.3

  Walker-Brown’s trip left him feeling that in the Khowlan Royalist morale was deteriorating, because there was no central leadership or inspiration, and no overall policy. Many important Yemeni personalities had gone abroad, and the country itself was decaying, as men ceased to farm the land and sat around in caves accepting gifts of gold and rifles.

  Walker-Brown’s particular worry was that the four-strong British mercenary team deployed with Abdullah bin Hassan was not making any impact on the military situation. The men had supervised the reception of two air-drops, but for political reasons they were not allowed to be active against the Egyptians. Their relations with Hassan seemed quite good, but he was not using them ‘to the full as military advisers’.

  The French mercenaries were suffering from similar frustrations. Two 120mm heavy mortars with a range of 13,800 yards, and four 120mm medium mortars with a range of 8,000 yards, had arrived at their training camp near Najran, and there they gave an impressive demonstration of the weapons’ fire-power, demolishing the target – a rocky hillock way out in the desert – with the first volley. It had already been proposed several times that these weapons should be used for an attack on the Sana’a airfield, but the Saudis withheld permission, fearful that they would be accused of breaking the terms of the Jeddah agreement. Besides, the reality was that any effective mortar attack on the airfield would be extraordinarily difficult to mount.

  The only point from which the big mortar bombs could be launched successfully was Gassim’s insecure position, and the task of ferrying weapons and ammunition to it would be almost insuperable: for the final approach march from the low ground of the Jauf, a force of 300 camels would be needed, and the journey might take a month. Even if the Saudi authorities agreed to release the mortars, Egyptian intelligence would get wind of the fact, and the likelihood of air-attacks on the camel caravan would be high. In any case, the principal targets – the MiGs and Ilyushins – might vanish, as the aircraft would probably be moved from Sana’a to Hodeidah.

  In an attempt to launch a new initiative, Jim and Walker-Brown composed a joint memorandum to Prince Sultan, which Jim read to the Prince on 18 July. The paper’s main recommendation – ‘in the absence of HM the Imam al-Badr’ – was:

  for the appointment of a strong military commander with responsibilities covering the whole of the Yemen. This person to be a member of the Bait Hamid ud Din family. He should be centrally based at a place where he can best control the whole of the Yemen. He should be advised by a small but influential Council of War which should include the commanders of the three principal areas . . .

  The memorandum also spoke of the possibility of training a permanent military force, perhaps with the help of the Saudi army. But grandiose plans were one thing – their execution something else. The truth was that the leadership of the European Advisory Group was beginning to splinter.

  Some of the mercenaries, bored by their enforced lack of action, wondered why Jim was still recruiting so enthusiastically. The answer seems to be that he was unquenchably optimistic, and believed that if he could put enough men on the ground, he yet might galvanise the Royalist commanders into a general uprising and get the Egyptians thrown out. So it was that he kept fishing, and among his latest haul was Alastair Macmillan, in his thirties, a member of 21 SAS, who had been working in public relations. Walking him through St James’s Park, Jim suggested that he might like to earn more money, but he would not disclose the nature of the task until Alastair agreed to undertake it. Alastair was naturally cautious, and first established that the job was not in Africa. He then asked, ‘Is it in the national interest?’ To which Jim replied evasively, ‘I think it’s your duty to go.’

  So he went, having told friends that he was off to sell oil rigs in the Middle East. From Jeddah he flew to Jizan, and thence he was driven south-eastwards towards his destination, El Qara. At the edge of the central massif, where the mountains rose almost vertically out of the plain, he was dumped, and from that point on he had to walk. A guide who met him immediately challenged him to a rifle-shooting contest. When the Arab put up two tin cans about fifty yards away, Alastair said, ‘No, no,’ and moved the targets out to a range more like a hundred yards. The Arab, firing first, missed twice, and was astonished when Alistair downed them both.

  Eight thousand feet up the mountains he came to the complex of caves once occupied by the Imam, set at the foot of a cliff in an amazingly steep rock face. There he became part of the three-man British team manning the Broadway radio station and living in the caves. The inhabitants of the village had also taken to the natural rock shelters, and in some of them they had set up little shops, with a variety of hand-grenades and ammunition displayed for sale on shelves alongside domestic stores like rice and flour. Limited supplies of water came up by donkey and, as Alastair remarked, ‘if you were a fool, you went down to see the place they was coming from’.

  In the open, gun-positions fortified by rock walls were set out round a wide, semicircular ridge, the prize weapon being a Hispano-Suiza cannon dating from the Spanish Civil War, manned by a couple of fifteen-year-olds. In theory the period during which Alastair stayed there was one of peace and calm: there was little fighting on the ground, but bombing raids were frequent. For as long as these were launched by Egyptian pilots, they were relatively innocuous; but every now and then the accuracy of the attacks increased unpleasantly, and the team concluded that the aircraft were being flown by ‘guest artists’ – that is, Russians.

  Like all the mercenaries, in the course of three tours Alastair moved around a good deal, mostly on foot, ferrying pieces of equipment to other stations, or temporarily replacing men going on leave. Every change of station meant hard walking, up and down exacting mountain tracks. One of his approach treks, going in from Beihan, took him past Marib and out into the wastes of the Rub’ al-Khali, where he visited the remains of the building alleged to have been the palace of the Queen of Sheba: a great, grey ruin rising out of the desert, with flat-fronted pillars of stone, like upright ribs, built into the walls. Even though the place was in Republican hands, he and his companion went into the heart of the ruin and found a little suq in which they could buy food.

  It was beginning to look as though the Saudis did not really want Nasser to be defeated. Now that they saw how much the Yemen war had weakened his army, and how it was draining his finances, they would prefer – it seemed – that his Expeditionary Force remained bogged down indefinitely. Yet at the same time they were reluctant to keep handing out gold sovereigns, which vanished like grains of sand into the mountains and deserts of the Yemen.

  Jim’s usual answer to a financial crisis was to head for Jeddah, and at the end of August 1966 he made yet another pilgrimage, reporting to Tony and Fiona on the 31st:

  All hell out here! Tourist [Prince Sultan] first of all said would we sign for one month. They are certain peace will be here in Oct. I said NO – must have at least two months. Finally settled for three months starting 1 Sept. I have the cheque, too. Roger has two months only.

  So far, so good. But Jim also reported an ‘enormous row’ between Bookbinder (Bob Walker-Brown) and Bee (Bernard Mills) – ‘all personal things’. The root of the trouble seems to have been that whenever one of the Yemeni leaders wanted military advice, he would turn to Mills, whom he respected most, rather than to the senior officer, and this made Walker-Brown see red. The main offender in this respect was Mohamed bin Hussein, whose faith in Berna
rd had been cemented by the part he played in planning the battles in Wadi Humeidat. Another cause of friction was the fact that Bernard had acquired some medication from a doctor in England who served as a medical officer with 21 SAS: one set of pills to keep him awake during long camel rides, and another set to make him sleep when he had a chance. When Walker-Brown heard about this, he told Jim that Bernard was on drugs, and Bernard was incensed to be branded an addict.

  Having been assured by both that they wished to resign if the other stayed, Jim told Walker-Brown that he refused his resignation and would accept Bernard’s. Jim wrote:

  Consternation! The next thing I know, Bee has set it up good and proper. Sultan has left [Jeddah] and Khalid sends for me and says that Bee MUST stay and Bookbinder must accept this. I said, No – we were not Arabs. I would not sack my boss under any circumstances. This shook them, and I refuse to alter this. The row is all over Jeddah now.

  Jim’s temporary solution was to send Bernard on leave until he could see Sultan, and to keep Walker-Brown in situ. ‘Don’t be beastly to Bee on his return next week, but don’t fraternise,’ he told London. ‘He has behaved very, very badly.’

  By now Tony Boyle was acting as the mercenaries’ field commander and political representative in Jeddah, with Mike Gooley (a recent recruit who had already done one operational tour) taking the role of Operations Officer. Writing to Jim on 10 October, Tony elaborated on the dissensions within the group:

  He [Walker-Brown] said to both Mike and David [Bailey] that he thought both you and I might be mixed up in this for business reasons. He also had a complete fixation that the Friends were out to eliminate us – I have found no evidence to support this. I believe he also took as a personal insult any delay or postponement of a meeting, and the Arabs do not mean this – it is their natural behaviour.