After many meetings Sultan accepts resignation Jim, Roger, Tony over basic disagreement conduct of war. Judge [Jim] offers hand over operation to Billy, Grin or anybody Sultan wants.
At 1200 Bosom came on the air again from Jeddah:
Sultan thanks you all and offers you new contracts same terms as now details to be fixed. If yes stay put, if no prepare to hand over rifles radios vehicles . . . but await final order.
That evening another message from Jim went out to all the boys in the field:
Sultan proposes coordinating committee of Mohamed bin Hussein, Shami, Khalid Sudairi, Zaid Sudairi, with Billy/Grin as advisers only. This committee to issue orders to our group, one of whom will presumably be appointed boss. Jay [Jim] releases you of all loyalty and sentiment, but you must decide Yes or No as contract starts tomorrow.
Rupert, Uncle, James resign. Jay departs tomorrow as he not believe Saudi will fight and unable serve as mercenary only or be morally responsible for you if you are – though he will not blame you.
In the event Jim did not ‘depart tomorrow’. On 1 May, still in Jeddah, he wrote to London:
My dear Hannah,
At last Tony and I have resigned over their incompetence. I will be back on Thursday. Can you please ring Judy if she is in the country and tell her. It’s too long to tell in a letter, so wait till I see you.
Love
Jay
Early on the morning of 1 May he sent out one last message to all stations:
I cannot thank you enough after four years, cannot say how sad I am. If there is to be any say, I have strongly recommended to Sultan that Migrant [Gooley] be appointed boss. If he is I hope you will all support him as you have done me.
On 2 May, as if in the hope of getting Jim to rescind his decision, the Mustang team sent in a strongly positive report:
Situation Aries [Arhab]. Hot war exists. Continual pressure maintained by Rake [Royalists] on Execrate [Egyptian] positions in and around Snail [Sana’a] suburbs with field pieces, company strength raids and sabotage. Egyptians ineffectively retaliate with aircraft and art[iller]y in Sharqa area. But reported losing heart rapidly. Only problems caused by shortage of everything due to unreliable and ineffective resupply. Personal impression Snail easy victory with right support from behind, this endorsed by those actively fighting. It seems that support is only sufficient to maintain pressure without actually defeating Egyptians. Rake morale and standard very high. Quite contrast to rear areas.
Jim, however, had had enough, and he left Jeddah on the 4th. Mike Gooley duly assumed command, but his appointment was by no means universally welcomed. ‘I personally disagree most strongly with this,’ radioed Kudu (Kerry Stone) on 4 April. ‘I know Migrant. The only possible person for the moment is Dandy [David Bailey]. Berber [Billy McLean], please look further before taking any steps . . . Please ensure this and opinions [of] other stations to Berber personally.’
Most members of the private army felt bitterly let down. For as long as Jim had been in command, they had felt protected: even though they were living in acute discomfort, and under daily threat of air-attack, they had enjoyed a feeling of security. They knew their salaries were safe in his hands, and that he would do everything he could to defend their interests. Their dismay came out in a message from Bailey (Dandy) in Mustang:
Sincere apologies, Judge, we know what we should do [that is, resign]. But quite simply we can’t afford to. We have to stay put and see what happens. If you have anything else up your sleeve, we are with you.
The majority soldiered on, and the radio network was full of their decisions: ‘Following say Yes – Kingfisher, Woodcutter, Kudu, Alar, Parsnip, Roc, Pagan, Galaxy, Mimic, Wig, Jingo, Dolphin . . .’ Others resigned out of loyalty to their long-term boss. ‘Dear Jay,’ one wrote on 1 May:
Well, they succeeded, I am sorry to say. I don’t like the way they did it, and I don’t believe they will make a success of it now that they are in control. I remember Grin’s administration from before, so I would like to be relieved as soon as possible. In any case my tour finishes in three weeks but I would like to go before this.
Once all the teams are in this area it would a good thing if you could come here and talk to them, as a lot of them are really in the dark, and if they decide to stay, it’s only fair they know what the score is . . . Whatever your policy is or line of action you take, I fully support you.
Jim had hardly arrived back in England when Mike wrote to him on 6 May from Jeddah, scribbling by hand in a state of exhaustion, to report that Tony was being ‘a tower of strength and generosity as ever. Can only hope that his influence and ability can in some way still help the cause. This an opinion so far as I can judge universal from every faction and group concerned.’ He enclosed a note to Hannah, asking her ‘to continue her good work for us all’. On the other hand:
You will obviously be interested in the Billy situation. It is Tony’s opinion and mine that he has completely lost out in every way . . . Billy is no longer a fear, even to me, and I think you can feel quite sure that he has lost another constituency and you’ve had a massive vote of confidence.
It was unfortunate, to say the least, that Jim fell out with the other two prime movers of the mercenary operation, for McLean and Smiley had both played a large part in its success. Their constant travels through the Yemen had given them more influence over the princes than any other member of the organisation, and it was their diplomatic skills – developed years earlier in dealing with Balkan and Ethiopian tribal chiefs – that made them so successful in extracting money from the Saudis. Compared with them, Jim was a beginner at diplomacy, and perhaps was a little jealous of the comfortable relationship that the other two enjoyed with Feisal, Sultan and various prominent Saudis.
As if to demonstrate that Saudi Arabia had no adequate defence against air-attacks, the Egyptians intensified their assault, bombing Najran on 11 and 12 May, and Jizan on the 13th. By then a battery of Hawk ground-to-air missiles had been installed at Jizan, and the launchers were ready for action, but they failed to fire, apparently because of the Saudi operators’ incompetence. When the Najran raids started, Hunters were scrambled from Khamis Mushayt, but arrived on the scene too late.
Renewed aggression hit the Yemen at the same time. On 11 May an urgent message went to Bosom from Mustang:
British team personally witnessed Egyptian gas bombing with eight Ilyushins at 0550 hrs 11 May on undefended, non-military villages of GAHR and GADAFA in ARHAB area. Fifty-one dead at GAHR no visible external wounds, twenty-four dead at GADAFA, only one of which had external wounds, Large number of survivors suffering from nausea, vomiting and respiratory/optic injuries. Have already requested Red Cross aid. Please take strongest possible action.
In response to this message, and an appeal from the surviving inhabitants, the Red Cross despatched a small convoy to the scene. On 13 May two doctors, a male nurse and other members of the team led by André Rochat1 set out from Amara in two lorries loaded with food and medical supplies, but the Egyptians had discovered their plans, and bombed the convoy en route, destroying both vehicles and most of their contents.
The result was that when the team eventually arrived it had no equipment for taking samples. ‘Rochat had no intention whatever of doing so,’ said a furious message from Mustang. ‘Three hours after arrival the whole bloody lot rushed off again, after slanging match with Dandy.’ But the Red Cross did confirm that seventy-five people had been killed, some of them discovered dead in their homes, as if they had died in their sleep. Almost 200 cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys, as well as many chickens, had also died. The human victims had been buried in four large communal graves, and when one of these was opened, an autopsy performed on a corpse left no doubt that the people had been killed by poison gas. Within a few days Gadafa and the other villages were raided again, and 243 more people were killed. The mercenaries photographed women and children who had died in sleeping positions inside their caves, took samples of soil and
vegetation, and collected an almost-intact bomb casing.
The Foreign Office, as usual, was doing its best to keep Britain out of trouble. It admitted that it had received confidential reports about the gas attacks ‘from Royalist sources’ – that is, Jim’s mercenary teams – but claimed that it could not take the matter up with the United Nations because it ‘had no quotable evidence’, since its information had come ‘from secret sources’. With King Feisal about to arrive in London for talks, two ‘defensive briefs’ were drafted on how to deal with him when discussing Nasser’s ever-increasing aggression. Under the heading ‘Talking Points’ some emollient initiatives were suggested:
We were shocked to hear of the latest wanton bombing of Najran. The King has our deep sympathy. We greatly deplore the loss of life and damage caused. We admire the King’s patience in the face of repeated provocation. What in the King’s view prompted this latest bombing? What are his intentions? We are sure that he will be right to resist, as he has in the past, the temptation to retaliate.2
Because the Saudi Air Force lacked enough aircraft and trained pilots to organise a proper defence (the brief continued), ‘there is . . . a slight danger that King Feisal might ask for military help as he has done in the past’:
The Americans undertook in 1962 to guarantee Saudi Arabian territory against unprovoked aggression. It is therefore to them that Feisal should turn. We do not have the forces available to defend Saudi Arabia against a major Egyptian attack and we can hardly contemplate becoming directly involved.3
As usual, the Foreign Office ignored the fact that Britain was directly involved, and had been for more than four years – albeit in a very small way. Even though Jim had stood down, his men were still in the mountains, and the London office was still functioning. On 19 May he wrote to Gooley in Jeddah, telling him that Hannah had banked a Saudi cheque for £10,875 with the Guarantee Trust of Jersey:
As you realise, things are very cloudy here, but basically the situation is as follows. The King [Feisal] has come here, encouraged by Julian [Amery] and Duncan Sandys, with the intention of trying to persuade the British Govt to change its mind. He has been made to believe that they may delay their departure from Aden and that they will then give some sort of defence agreement up to three years after the departure.
This he is rapidly being disillusioned about, and Mr George Brown [the Foreign Secretary] and Lord Shackleton [Minister of Defence for the RAF] have both privately told Tony Boyle in the House that the Brit Govt intends to stick to the following three things. Independence by November 1967, with if possible British troops out by January 1968, [secondly] a defence agreement for six or nine months maximum, consisting of a carrier force over the horizon. The wording of the agreement is so cynical that they admit that it can never be enforced, as it would only cover open aggression by the Egyptian army itself. And thirdly that at the end of the six or nine months there will be nothing whatsoever, and they don’t care what happens in the area, Nasser or the Russians.
Obviously this is not what the King expected on arrival here, and far from strengthening his will to fight, it will tend to encourage the present vacillation of Saudi policy. The King is due to see the PM and the FO again next Tuesday and will fight hard obviously and will use the bargaining power of the [Lightning] air deal . . . . On the other side of the hill Mr Brown is indulging in a private correspondence with Nasser, with a view to re-establishing diplomatic relations and getting an agreement to call FLOSY [Front for the Liberation of South Yemen] off and let us get out of Aden quietly . . .
I regret that Foster Productions went out of business and no longer exists.
Two days later Mike wrote to Jim:
Things here have been absolute murder. Without any exaggeration, it has been 18–20 hours a day . . . The Royalist position is very poor at present. They are really in need of some positive encouragement and support . . . Mochsin at Heera’an is of course the last outpost, and they have made nine gas attacks against his area. This is enough to demoralise the stoutest hearts, and the death roll, I think accurate, is more than 250 souls. Really the Gyppos are cowardly, inhuman bastards, and at least that gives us all a motivation to even the score a little.
We see and hear from the world press/news that the gas story has been given good prominence . . . I’m sure that they [the Egyptians] used the tension on the Syrian/Israeli border to hope that it wouldn’t even be noticed. The Middle East is sure hotting up.
On 24 May the Imam managed to cable Harold Wilson, appealing to his ‘human conscience’ to stop ‘this horrible holocaust’ and ‘to take a drastic action to put an end to the Egyptian aggression . . . The Yemeni people put this responsibility upon your shoulders before God and history.’4 To this impassioned plea the official files contain no reply.
At the end of May a small team of mercenaries – David Bailey, Kerry Stone and Mick Facer – was detailed to recover one of the gas bomb-casings and take it with them to Jeddah when they went on leave.5 They found that the black cylinder was about the size of a small dustbin, with walls an inch and a half thick, and that it weighed nearly 200 pounds. They brought it out to Najran in the back of a Land Rover Sherpa pickup; but, seizing the chance of a lift, six or seven Yemenis swarmed into the back of the vehicle and travelled with the bomb, half-hidden under Kerry’s futa, rolling around among their feet. In due course MI6 took it over and sent it on to England for examination at Porton Down. Samples were also taken from the hearts and lungs of victims – the desecration of the bodies inevitably upset the Arabs – and sent for analysis; but although the poison was identified, no clear evidence about it emerged.6
14
Smash Hit
Mike Gooley’s words – ‘hotting up’ – were an understatement. Throughout the first months of 1967 tension between Israel and its Arab neighbours (Egypt, Jordan and Syria) had been steadily building, with both sides intent on provoking a showdown. The Arab nations were urged on towards a major conflict by Nasser’s propaganda, and on the other side (in the words of the American historian Dr Eugene Rogan) ‘The Israelis needed one good war to secure defensible boundaries and inflict a decisive defeat on the Arabs to impose peace on terms with which Israel could live.’1
On 16 May Nasser ordered his army across the Suez Canal into Sinai and stationed troops close to the Israeli frontier. On the 18th he demanded the removal of the 4,500-strong United Nations Emergency Force, whose function had been to act as a buffer between Egypt and Israel. His final act of provocation, on the 22nd, was to close the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping – a move that he knew was bound to lead to war.
For the next two weeks the Israeli Cabinet and High Command feverishly debated their next actions. On 4 June they took the decision to go to war, and in a surprise attack launched at 7.10 a.m. next morning Israeli jets took the Egyptian Air Force completely by surprise, destroying 286 out of 420 combat aircraft on the ground while their crews were still at breakfast. Sweeping in off the Mediterranean under the radar, sometimes only 50 feet above the sea, fighter-bombers wrecked thirteen air bases, besides twenty-three radar stations and anti-aircraft sites. Next, in mid-morning, the Israelis hit bases in Jordan and in two waves knocked out the entire Jordanian Air Force. In all these raids they lost only nine of their own aircraft. By midday the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian air forces had been eliminated.
It was these brilliant, pre-emptive strikes that turned the conflict in Israel’s favour. The Egyptians had done no serious war planning, and they had no contingency plans. Robbed of its air cover, the army in Sinai was at the mercy of airborne predators and was quickly overrun. Its tanks, trundling across the desert in daylight, were easy meat for the Israeli fighter-bombers: 80 per cent of them were destroyed, and some 15,000 men were killed and 4,500 captured. Mendacious Egyptian propaganda, portraying defeat as victory and claiming amazing triumphs in Sinai, induced Jordan and Syria to join in the war; but within six days the Israelis had captured the Old City of Jerusalem, the West Bank and
the Syrian Golan Heights, besides the whole of the Sinai Peninsula and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, defeating all the Arab armies and doubling the size of their own territory.
Forced to admit defeat, on 10 June Nasser announced his resignation on television, claiming that he had decided ‘to withdraw totally and for good’ from any official post or political role, and ‘to return to the ranks of the masses’. True to form, within twenty-four hours he retracted his decision, in deference (he claimed) to the immense show of support that his first announcement had provoked.
It was the first, devastating air-strikes that turned the war in Israel’s favour, but the fact that perhaps 50,000 Egyptian troops were absent in the Yemen – one-third of the entire army – contributed substantially to their country’s collapse: Eugene Rogan reckoned that ‘Egypt lost the ’67 war in the Yemen’.2 In any event, it was this shocking and unexpected defeat that made Nasser lose face with the Arabs as champion of their cause.
The victors wasted no time in thanking friends who, they considered, had given them sterling (if indirect) assistance. A few days after the war had ended, at the instigation of Mossad’s Nahum Admoni, Jim and Tony Boyle were invited to Israel. They were both surprised, for they did not reckon they had done Israel any great service. On the contrary, it was the Israelis who had done them a considerable service by flying the arms drops. The leaders of the mercenary campaign had run it purely to help the Yemeni Royalists expel the Egyptian Army from their country, and so to protect British interests in southern Arabia. The fact that their efforts had also proved of benefit to Israel was entirely coincidental. Nevertheless, they were glad to accept the invitation – which was the only recognition they received for four years of often exasperating effort.
The War that Never Was Page 29