The War that Never Was

by Duff Hart-Davis

  Here we have one of the leading Royalist Princes on his way to his area to make some attempt to fight the Gyppos, and he is held up by a tribe demanding money . . . If I was Abdullah I would rally my ‘army’ as he proudly calls it and knock hell out of the Jacham . . . I am afraid I get more and more sceptical about the ability of the Yemenis to ever again be able to make a concerted effort against the Egyptians.

  On 10 January there was ‘big excitement’ at Fluke, when a message from Jim announced that Prince Sultan had granted him a further four-month contract; and when Ramadan ended the next morning, there was much rejoicing in Wadi Gara: people turned out in their finest clothes for the first day of Eid (the three-day festival after the end of Ramadan), and (according to Duncan) ‘after a bit of communal praying everyone got stuck into celebration feasts’.

  Jim’s radio reports to the front did not, of course, mention the internal tensions that were threatening to tear apart the high command of his private army. In a long letter from Jeddah, written on 3 October 1966, Tony Boyle had told him:

  You cannot agree to Bernard [Mills] returning [here] without Bob [Walker-Brown]. The Saudis will definitely not accept Bob back without Bernard . . . There remains the alternative – that they both go. I know that Bob is not keen to return; I strongly advise you that if he returns here, we will not be re-employed.’

  Jim gave way, and Walker-Brown did not return. He had not fitted in, and had found that there was really no job for him to do. In retrospect, his appointment appeared to have been a mistake. Bernard, who had left the organisation for the time being, was helping Stirling and Woodhouse set up a new organisation called Watchguard International, whose role was to furnish British Embassies with security and protect heads of government from violent overthrow. He then took a small team of former SAS men to Aden to train a Federal National Guard Special Force, but this project proved stillborn with the collapse of the Federal Government in the run-up to Britain’s withdrawal. Later Bernard returned, was reconciled with Jim and went back into the Jauf, supporting Mohamed bin Hussein and supervising the training of the regular army that the Prince was trying to create.

  In October 1966, in an attempt to stabilise his private force’s situation, Jim flew to Jeddah once more, and a long letter to Fiona illustrated the range of problems that he was facing. On the one hand, he was practising diplomacy at the highest level, trying to retain the interest and financial support of the Saudi leaders; on the other, he was worrying about the safety of individual men living in caves in the Yemen, and at the same time grappling with dozens of small administrative tasks. ‘The bombing in Yemen is getting more and more every day,’ he told Fiona:

  There are indications that the Wog ground forces are pulling back to Sana’a . . . Practically everyone has been bombed or rocketed, many a lot. Rupert has had a real plastering. He is closing his station today and coming up here with the PM, who has at last agreed to come out.

  The Wogs have started gas again. It is being dropped from Russian aircraft flying direct from Egypt. They are also, for the first time in three years, bombing at night.

  I have NOT seen Tourist [Prince Sultan], who is still at the Capital [Riyadh]. Meanwhile Roger [Faulques] and I wait here till the Yemenis and Saudis finally agree. However, the other side’s problems really are worse now. Every day more Repubs get shot or arrested, and all under savage brutality too. At least I haven’t started shooting our side, yet! Or being shot by them.

  All our boys in good heart and send you love. I had no idea we had so many crushes on you. Nor exactly just how frightened some of them are of you!! Well done. It all came out the other evening when there were a dozen of them sitting here in the house talking.

  Visas – well done, General Fiona!

  There followed a volley of instructions for Fiona to discharge:

  K. Stone – send £60 to Kerry’s brother ASAP . . . Punchy [McNeil]: cable his wife DO NOT PAY ANY MONEY, LETTER FOLLOWING, NEIL . . . Uncle – December pay in dollars paid in Jeddah to BBME [British Bank of the Middle East] . . . BUY (a) 15 copies Daily Telegraph map of Middle East, (b) one copy Daily Telegraph world map, (2) two rolls of FABLON (max width). . . .2

  What else can one do but laugh and booze? The air conditioner failed during the night, & I think I may die.

  On that trip alone Jim spent eleven days hanging around in Jeddah, waiting to see Sultan. Up to a point he enjoyed this kind of long-range sparring, playing the Saudis at their own game; but this time it became too much, and only by threatening to leave did he eventually obtain an audience. On 6 November he reported to Fiona that he and Tony had been to tea with Whiskers, his two sons and four or five Aden ministers who were in town to see the King and were staying in the Royal Palace:

  Quite fantastic, all six times larger than life and eight times as vulgar. Blue walls, red ceilings, gold everywhere, slaves, guards, hangers-on and chaos all mixed up with ghastly Persian carpets and lovely, lovely Minton royal crested china.

  The Sherif was very pleased to see us, especially Tea, and sat on the red plush sofa with us drinking his tea out of his saucer, mouthful by mouthful, but with very real dignity. He had dyed his hair and beard dark brown and was looking very well indeed. The London/Beirut nightclub life has done a lot for him.

  We must conclude that:

  Nasser’s position as President of the UAR, and perhaps his life, depend upon his securing the oil royalties in Arabia.

  Nasser intends to stay in Yemen until the British leave Aden.

  Nasser intends to enter Aden when the British leave.

  Nasser intends to use Aden as a base from which to attack or subvert the Arabian Gulf oil states.

  The Russians have not armed and equipped Nasser’s army for nothing, and we must expect a much stronger Russian dominance of Egyptian affairs after Nasser has entered Aden.

  We believe that the only people capable of leading the Yemeni tribesmen to victory over the Egyptians are the Yemeni royal family. They may not be ideal but they are the only people we have met in Yemen who have enough control over the tribes to be able to unite them in a common cause against the enemy . . . We therefore strongly advise the Saudi Arabian Government to persuade the Yemeni royal family to unite and elect their best man as their military leader.

  We therefore recommend that Saudi Arabia, through the Yemeni royal family, give all financial, military and advisory support required by the Yemenis to drive the Egyptians out of the Yemen before the British withdrawal from Aden in 1968, and that all this should be started immediately, as time is now no longer on our side.

  Much the same message was being given to the Saudis by David Stirling, who was lobbying tirelessly for measures to delay the British withdrawal from Aden and to strengthen the federal army in the south. One of his aims was to secure active support from the Shah of Iran, and he made several visits to Teheran, where he held talks with the Chief of Internal Security, General Nesiri.

  On 14 November good news for all the mercenary stations came from London, relayed by Bosom:

  Operational contract signed until New Year, plus your pay until end Jan.

  New contract terms: after first tour and leave, 4½ months’ tour and six weeks’ leave. Jim

  On that same day, in yet another attempt to galvanise the Saudi rulers, the European Advisory Group submitted a strongly worded document to Prince Sultan:

  We feel it our duty to submit our report on the military situation in the Yemen which at this moment is extremely bad. During the last few months the Egyptians have withdrawn and concentrated their army into sensible military positions. They are now holding the southern Yemen with the minimum of financial and military effort. In our opinion they will continue to talk and delay without war as long as possible until the British leave in a year’s time.

  The only way to remove the Egyptians from the Saudi peninsula is to make it too expensive financially and militarily for them to stay, by restarting large-scale guerrilla war. This must be done quickly . . .
If by the middle of next year nothing has been done along these lines, it is our opinion that Nasser will ultimately win.

  Kerry Stone’s second post was Mustang, the station in Wadi Heera’an. The road-head attracted frequent, heavy attacks by Egyptian aircraft, which strafed, rocketed and bombed with both high explosive and mustard gas and phosgene. Kerry reckoned that during his three tours, besides being mortared, he was strafed thirty-five times and bombed 100 times, seven or eight of them with gas.

  Ordinary bombing was bad enough, and Kerry had one particularly narrow escape. As four Ilyushins approached, he took refuge behind a natural rock wall. Then he saw a bomb dropping straight at him. By a miracle it landed on a shelf about ten feet above and twenty yards behind him. The noise of the explosion was shattering, but the blast and shrapnel went over his head. Worst of all was being bombed at night. ‘In pitch-black darkness you couldn’t see the aircraft, but you could hear the bombs roaring down. The noise and vibration were like an underground train coming into a station, but ten times louder.’

  On the evening of 16 November Royalist machine-gunners in the Wadi Heera’an had a rare success, when they downed two MiGs. There was some high-spirited argument about whose bullets had done the job – for the British team were now allowed to fire the guns. The pilot of the first aircraft did not eject and was killed. The second MiG crashed with one wing on fire: the pilot did eject, but was badly injured and had the misfortune to land among Royalist tribesmen. Although later rescued by the Egyptians, he too was reported to have died. The mercenaries’ Bulletin No. 5 recorded that the wreck of his aircraft was being heavily guarded, and that an agent had been unable to get close enough to photograph it; but the team were confident that they had hit it with a .50 Browning while it was making a low run.

  A later report confirmed that a machine gun reputed to be from an Ilyushin shot down near Wadi Marib on 3 October had been seen ‘by British eyes’. It was a Russian 37mm, badly damaged in the crash, but not apparently by fire or explosion. The Egyptians were offering 1,000 MTDs for its return, and the tribesman who held it was hoping to trade it for a .50 Browning or heavy machine gun.

  In the middle of November Prince Sultan invited Mohamed bin Hussein and other Yemeni princes to a conference in Riyadh, but the talks began badly with a fiery meeting between Hussein and Sultan himself. Hussein, after registering a protest by sulking for two days, was persuaded to return to the meetings, and in due course the Saudis agreed to channel their payments to the Royalists through the Yemeni princes. But at the same time the Imam – as usual – was wavering. Three weeks earlier he had nominated Hussein as the Crown Prince and formed an Imamate Council; but he was now being pressed to reverse those decisions, especially by his intriguing father-in-law and secretary, Yahya al-Hirsi.

  While the Royalist leaders conferred, the Egyptians stepped up the military pressure, concentrating their assault on the Haimatain, west of Sana’a: MiGs and Ilyushins kept up strafing and bombing runs all day, and tanks attacked on the ground, destroying many houses. Lorry-mounted rocket-launchers were also brought into action. A few days later Mustang radio reported that some of the sheikhs in the Haimatain area had been arrested by Republicans, and the people had been warned that unless they gave up their weapons, the sheikhs would be shot.

  Considering the constant strain under which the mercenaries were living – the harsh conditions and the isolation – it was not surprising that their sense of proportion sometimes deserted them. At the beginning of December one head-of-station suddenly announced that he would be leaving his post five days early. When Tony queried this from London, saying he understood that the man would be remaining until the end of December, he received a sharp blast in return: ‘I was. However because of lack cooperation this station’s agreed roles, Ramadan, absence of Princes, I no longer consider my presence necessary.’

  It was nothing new for operators to vent their frustrations on Tony, but when a feud broke out between two of his stations, who were supposed to be helping each other, he was not prepared to tolerate internecine strife; he told both antagonists to shut up, and soon afterwards went into the Yemen himself to spend three weeks with the man who had been the first to complain.

  Fresh hostilities kept flaring up. On 6 December Egyptian tanks and artillery shelled positions in the Haimatain for four hours, destroying houses and livestock, but causing few casualties. Then on the 11th three devices exploded in Najran – on Saudi territory – one outside the house of the Yemeni Prime Minister, one under a water-tanker and one that destroyed an anti-aircraft gun. The Saudis’ immediate reaction was to arrest twenty people and forbid Yemenis to enter their country from the Yemen, a move that started a witch-hunt against all Yemenis in Saudi. As most of the unskilled workers in Saudi Arabia were Yemenis, the ban threatened huge repercussions – and after further harassing restrictions, the mercenary organisation advised the Yemeni princes to try to stop the movement of their people across the border.

  While the Riyadh conference dragged on, decisions on budgets and military supplies were repeatedly postponed. The delay brought increasingly desperate calls for help from the tribal leaders who, in the absence of the princes, were trying to hold their ground against the Egyptian Army, and at the same time attempting, with minimal resources, to stifle the Egyptians’ sustained psychological pressure on the tribesmen to abandon the Royalist cause.

  For Jim, one major worry was the instability of the Saudi leadership. From Geoffrey Edwards, whose prolonged negotiations over the Lightning deal had given him inside political knowledge, Tony Boyle learnt that an anti-Feisal clique was gaining strength. The group’s aim was to overthrow the King: already he was being deprived of important information, and his orders were not being carried out.

  The danger of this development was emphasised by a letter from Shami. The writer urged the Iranian Ambassador in Riyadh to warn the Shah that Nasser’s ambitions reached far beyond the Yemen, and that his ultimate aim was to ‘move up to the oil fields of the Persian Gulf’. ‘This movement must ultimately be of vital interest to you,’ Shami told the Iranian envoy – and he offered to go to Teheran and discuss the problem with the Shah himself, ‘in order that we can clarify our thoughts and work together on a united front’. (In fact the Shah had agreed to send military supplies, and to train up to 100 Yemenis in Iran.)

  In Riyadh, however, Feisal was still very much in command, and he did not like anyone telling him what to do. As Tony reported from Jeddah on 14 December:

  The King told the [British] Ambassador that while he appreciated the work Colonel Johnson and his men were doing for the Saudis and in the Yemen, and wanted them to continue, he was very vexed about a letter sent by Colonel Johnson to him. He considered that Colonel Johnson and his men were paid to do what the Saudis asked, not to advise the Saudis on what their policy should be.

  The Ambassador replied that he was not in contact with Colonel Johnson – but would Feisal like that message to be passed on to him? Feisal replied that he would.

  In spite of all the difficulties, both political and physical, Jim’s private army was in good shape. ‘Mike [Gooley] has done very well here,’ Tony reported from Jeddah on 17 December:

  and there is no doubt that in the third month of having an ‘ops’ set up here we are feeling the benefit. Requests from the field are being met, budgets and re-supplies are going in pretty well on time. The general sense of tightening efficiency here has, I think, reflected in improved morale in the field.

  The year ended with vigorous fighting. On 23 December the Egyptians launched three major attacks, supported by tanks and artillery, pushing outwards from Sana’a into the areas of the Hamdan, Haimatain and Beni Hashaish tribes, and reconquering positions that they had abandoned three months earlier. Meanwhile, the talks in Riyadh were foundering on the Saudi proposal that the name ‘Mutawakkilite’ should be omitted from the title of the new political party, representing a united front, which they were urging the Yemenis to create. The pr
inces refused to accept the suggestion, and the talks were undermined by the abrupt departure of Abdullah bin Hassan, who flew to Jeddah and threatened to go to Beirut, to publish an open letter to King Feisal, complaining of the overbearing attitude that the Saudis were adopting towards the Yemen.

  The Imam was out of action, away in Saudi Arabia undergoing treatment, officially for a kidney complaint, but in fact for alcoholism. This was his second attempt at a cure, the first having been completed just before the revolution; but observers felt that it was unlikely to be any more successful than the first, as Yahya al-Hirsi, who lived with him and drank heavily himself, probably found the Imam more malleable when he was under the influence than when he was sober. In the Imam’s absence, Shami met King Feisal for the first time, in Riyadh, and they talked in private for forty-five minutes. According to one of the regular Bulletins now being issued by the mercenary headquarters in Jeddah:

  This meeting completely reversed the rather gloomy trend reported last week, and when King Feisal later met all the Yemeni Princes, he assured them that he agreed with their request to retain the name ‘Mutawakkilite’ kingdom, and to appoint two committees to coordinate and control the anti-Egyptian campaign in Yemen.

  Another Bulletin reported mounting tension on the Saudi/Yemen border between Jizan and El Qara. In one incident Saudi soldiers shot dead four Yemeni tribesmen and took twenty prisoner, and quite large numbers of Yemenis were roaming without food or income on the Saudi side of the frontier. It was said that 200 Yemeni saboteurs had been trained by the Egyptians and despatched to work in Saudi Arabia – but the Saudis claimed to have arrested all except seventy of them, and to know the names of those still at large.