SAS Heroes

by Pete Scholey

  During the Regiment’s ‘secret war’ in the Dhofar region of southern Oman in the early 1970s, Kevin was with B Squadron and was heavily involved in many fierce actions against the Adoo who had infiltrated from South Yemen. On one occasion, when a patrol was in real trouble on open ground and under heavy fire, the patrol commander badly needed mortar support. The patrol was unable to pinpoint the enemy’s exact position, so was unable to bring fire to bear. Kevin, being a qualified mortar instructor so skilled that he could fire the weapon accurately using only a helmet as a base plate if need be, was able to put down a bomb safely in a position that was quite close to the friendly patrol. From the enemy’s return fire, the patrol commander managed to locate them and direct accurate mortar fire on to them.

  Yet Kevin managed all of this while sharing a common affliction with me – he was hopeless in the classroom. Put Kevin behind a desk and he went to pieces. Having been wasters at school, we both needed help when it came to sitting the written exams we had to do as part of our army education. You had to be able to pass the exams to get any kind of real promotion. Kevin’s comment on this was, ‘Don’t know why you need sums to kill people’. Fortunately, we both had help from the best teacher I know – my wife Lyn. She took us through the basics of percentages, fractions and general mathematics, setting exercises and tests for us at home in our front room. Lyn got us to a standard where we both passed our exams, but I was always more worried about myself than Kevin. All Kevin really needed was a change of attitude to get him through the abstract paperwork. He could never really see why such tests were at all relevant to his work, but I already knew that he could handle all sorts of calculations if he thought they had a practical purpose; he had proved that when we were training in the Libyan Desert.

  Memorial plaque in the Regiment’s Garden of Remembrance at St Martin’s Church, Hereford.

  Lt Col Blair (‘Paddy’) Mayne, the most decorated British serviceman of World War II.

  Len Owens, proudly wearing his own and his father’s medals.

  Members of B Squadron, with a detachment of American special forces, testing a vehicle for mobility troop, 1960s. Standing 1st left, Dave Abbot; seated 3rd from left, Mike Kealy; 4th from left, Steve Callan; 5th from left, Kevin Walsh; extreme right, Roger Cole.

  Don ‘Lofty’ Large (foreground) serving in the Sultan of Oman’s forces after leaving the Regiment.

  Iain ‘Jock’ Thomson, 1963.

  The Jebel Akhdar, Muscat, northern Oman.

  Camel training in the Middle East.

  Bronco Lane whilst conquering Everest in 1976.

  Ginge Tyler.

  Kevin Walsh, ‘the airborne wart’, enjoys a five-minute break while running an 81mm mortar course.

  John Partridge in the Far East, 1950s.

  Bob Podesta with a slippery friend on survival training in the Far East.

  Bob Podesta having his parachute equipment adjusted before a jump.

  Alfie Tasker (right) awaiting extraction after a patrol in the Radfan mountains, 16 June 1966.

  Bob Podesta served all over the world with the Regiment including Northern Ireland.

  Mick ‘Ginge’ Tyler at work in Borneo, winning hearts and minds through his medical training. In return for his help, the natives gave Ginge many survival tips which he would later put to good use.

  Talaiasi Labalaba on operations, southern Oman, 1971.

  Talaiasi Labalaba in an observation post position, Aden, 1960s.

  A two-man team setting up and testing a Claymore mine in the Middle East.

  Colin Wallace plants two British Legion crosses at the spot where Tommy Tobin and Laba were fatally wounded in front of Mirbat fort.

  Talaiasi Labalaba’s grave at St Martin’s Church, Hereford, with the badge of The Royal

  Regimental memorial window at St Martin’s Church, Hereford.

  In the featureless desert, where shifting sand dunes can create hills where there were none before or completely disguise features that may be marked on a map, the most accurate form of navigation before the high-tech days of the Global Positioning System (GPS) was to do things the way that David Stirling’s desert raiders had done during World War II. You had to navigate using the sun and the stars. Astral navigation involves using almanacs and calculation tables that are thoroughly bamboozling until you have a sound understanding of the subject and have mastered the use of these ‘tools of the trade’. Just as he had a flair for range and bearing as a mortarman, Kevin quickly grasped the fundamentals of astral navigation ... long before Lyn began coaching us in maths. Not only that, but he then devoted a great deal of time and uncharacteristic patience to leading me through the subject one step at a time. I will be forever grateful to him for that.

  The grumpy sod in Kevin, however, was never far from the surface, always there to bolster the bolshy attitude that so exasperated his superiors. When Kevin was with B Squadron, approaching the end of a gruelling five-month tour in Oman, he was looking forward to a well-deserved break back home in Hereford, with G Squadron already on the ground as B Squadron’s replacements. However, as he prepared to leave, Kevin was summoned by the squadron commander and told that his tour was to be extended by two weeks. During the early deployment of the Regiment in the ‘secret war’, a squadron would set up temporary defensive positions in certain areas of the jebel. According to the tactics decided upon and manpower available, some of these positions would become permanent while others were abandoned, to be re-occupied if it became necessary at a later date. One such position was in an area called Tawe a Tair. This was a very high-risk position to try to re-occupy, as the Adoo were known to have drifted back into the area and would put up very fierce resistance.

  Because Kevin had previously spent several weeks at Tawe a Tair, his familiarity with the position made him the ideal choice to lead a troop of G Squadron to re-take it, reinforced with elements of the sultan’s Baluchi troops and local Firquas (surrendered enemy soldiers retrained by the SAS to fight against the units they’d left). Kevin had no problem with the two-week extension of his tour; the problem arose when he was told that he’d have two Firquas with him.

  ‘Is that two platoons, Sir, or two companies?’ he asked.

  ‘Neither,’ replied the squadron commander. ‘You’ll have two leading scouts from the Firquas!’

  ‘Two blokes?’ Kevin went berserk. ‘What do you mean, two blokes? No way! I wouldn’t want to lead on that position with two brigades.’

  Yet just as I suspect the squadron commander knew he would, Kevin did lead on the position. Along with his two Firquas, Kevin made his way up onto the jebel under cover of darkness. They climbed in silence towards the eastern sector of the jebel where Tawe a Tair lay, with loose kit, water bottles, their radio and spare magazines well strapped down to avoid any embarrassing clanking. Any noise would carry through the still night air in the mountains like a foghorn, announcing their presence to any sentries who might be lurking on the hillside. Every footstep was placed with care to avoid sending a scattering of pebbles or crumbling rock clattering down the slope.

  They were within striking distance of Tawe a Tair before dawn and settled into cover among the rocks. As the sky grew lighter, Kevin surveyed the rough collection of sangars (a sangar is a small fortified position with breastwork of stone or sandbags). There was no sign of movement, no lights, no tell-tale wisps of smoke or glowing camp fires. The place looked deserted. Moving cautiously, making use of every boulder and rocky outcrop for cover, they approached the position, straining to hear the dreaded sound of a weapon being cocked or, worse still, the bark of a rifle. The three lonely figures sneaking forward in the spreading dawn would stand little chance against any enemy hidden in the protection of the stone sangars. It was with immense relief that they eventually confirmed that the position was unoccupied – for now.

  Kevin’s next task was to explore the various sangars. As a demolitions expert, he was expected to check for any parting gifts that might have been left by th
e Adoo. Booby traps could lurk beneath any seemingly discarded piece of equipment (although it was unlike the Adoo to leave anything like that behind), among a pile of rocks or in a fire position, waiting only for an unwary trooper to trip a wire or kick a stone to set off a grenade. Kevin and the two Firquas carefully swept the area, then set up the radio to signal that it was safe for G Squadron to join them.

  Arriving at Tawe a Tair in strength, and with a helicopter dropping off an 81mm mortar to advertise the fact, it wasn’t long before unseen eyes on the surrounding mountains spotted that G Squadron had moved in. The Adoo were quick to respond. The men of G Squadron were settling in, ever alert for an attack, when the familiar whistle and crump of an incoming mortar round sent them scurrying for cover. A wave of Adoo mortar bombs was accompanied by rocket fire that sent shrapnel and rock splinters zinging through the air. The explosions lifted great clouds of dust that drifted across their positions but, peering out from behind their sangar walls, G Squadron soon located the Adoo. Kevin took command of the mortar and, yelling fire instructions and adjustments, he directed a rain of deadly accurate high explosives on his opposite number. The exchange continued until the Adoo were seen to be withdrawing, carrying with them a number of wounded. G Squadron retained possession of Tawe a Tair.

  During Kevin’s fourth tour in Oman in October 1971, he was involved in Operation Jaguar and badly wounded. By that time I was with B Squadron and both B and G Squadrons, along with a large force of Firquas and a battalion of the sultan’s troops, were deployed in an ambitious operation to seize a large mountain area around an Adoo stronghold in the village of Jibjat.

  For Kevin and the rest of us in B Squadron, Operation Jaguar began with a long night march that Pete Winner (see Chapter 13) refers to as ‘the death march’. We were all carrying obscenely heavy loads, but the idea was to take advantage of the hours of darkness when we could move into the jebel without fear of being targeted by snipers and without suffering in the heat of the day. There were no roads for vehicles and no paths suitable for mules in the darkness, so everything that we needed had to be carried on our backs. Our first objective was to secure a plateau where there was an old air strip. Helicopters could then resupply us with water, ammunition and reinforcements.

  Old hands like Kevin simply resigned themselves to the fact that they were in for a long slog and kept plodding on up the ever steeper, rocky path. The darkness kept us safe from enemy snipers, but the night brought no respite from the strength-sapping heat. There was little or no sign of the dramatic temperature drop you can experience in the desert at night. The heat made the air feel heavy and dead when you sucked it into your lungs, as though the mountains were punishing us with a torture of suffocation for desecrating their slopes with every infidel footstep. We stopped for a water break every hour or so and a proper rest after six hours. Pulling yourself back on your feet after a short break, when every muscle in your body is screaming at you to lie down and rest, takes every ounce of willpower you can muster. Ginge Rees, who was carrying three radio sets, simply didn’t move after one break. He was lying flat on his back and, when he was checked for pulse and breathing, appeared simply to have dropped dead. Mouth-to-mouth, CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and pints of precious cooling water eventually brought him round. His kit was distributed among the rest of us and Ginge, showing a real fighting spirit, came back from the dead to carry on with the march.

  We made it to the landing site and secured the area by dawn the next morning. A couple of guys were evacuated with heat exhaustion when the choppers came in, another with an injured knee. After we’d been fed and rested, we were split into battle groups that were further divided into smaller patrols to start probing towards the enemy. Kevin’s group was involved in a diversionary manoeuvre to the east of our position and came under heavy fire on several occasions. It occupied a small hill and drew accurate machine-gun and mortar fire from the Adoo who were determined to oust them from the position. In the past, when the sultan’s forces had made forays into the jebel, territory that the Adoo and hill tribes most definitely regarded as ‘theirs’, concerted attacks had sent the government troops scurrying back down the mountain again. The SAS-led forces now on the hill, however, were made of sterner stuff.

  They dug themselves in and built stone sangars from which they returned the enemy fire. During four days of intense fighting on what the SAS came to refer to as ‘Pork Chop Hill’ (after the two fierce battles of the same name between Chinese and American troops in the Korean War), Strikemaster aircraft were called in seven times to plaster the Adoo positions with their rockets, devastate them on bombing runs and rake them with machine-gun fire. Eventually, the Adoo got the message – this group was not going to be chased out of the mountains. Operation Jaguar was to continue for three weeks, with B and G Squadrons gradually expanding their area of operations until the Adoo had been driven from the area. Heavy casualties were suffered on both sides. One of those was Kevin.

  Kevin’s group was settling into a new position, going about the business of setting up its base camp, when suddenly the rocks and dust around their feet were spat into the air as the position was raked with machine-gun fire. The men dived for the cover of their sangars, getting their heads down and shouting to each other to establish from where the incoming rounds were being fired. Where were the Adoo? Kevin had a more immediate problem than finding out where the Adoo were. He needed to get himself under cover. He was nowhere near a sangar (although he later always maintained that he couldn’t get into one because they were all full of officers), so dived behind a stack of jerry cans. Cover from view, however, as any infantryman will tell you, is not cover from fire. A jerry can full of water might be enough to stop a bullet. Unfortunately, the jerry cans Kevin was hiding behind were all empty. He was hit in the arse.

  As soon as other soldiers were able to get to him, Kevin was carried to a casevac helicopter, complaining bitterly not about his wound, but about the idiot medic who had left a morphine syringe sticking in his bum. He was flown to Salalah where his wound was tended to by the surgical team and he soon found himself lying face down on the clean white sheets of a hospital bed. Word quickly got around that the airborne wart had been wounded and exactly where that wound was situated. Kevin was far from pleased about that. When one ranking officer paid a visit to the hospital he commiserated Kevin about having been shot in the arse. Kevin could stand it no more. ‘Listen, Sir,’ he hissed. ‘I’ve told everyone else and now I’m telling you – it’s not my arse it’s my upper thigh!’ An SAS NCO who was on hand quickly stepped in to explain: ‘What you have to understand, Sir, is that Kevin’s arse starts at the back of his neck and goes all the way down to his ankles...’

  The wound was actually no laughing matter. It was serious enough to lay Kevin low for a while, but eventually he couldn’t stand the hospital routine any longer and discharged himself. He was back on operations before long and served with the Regiment on active service in a number of different theatres, including Northern Ireland. Having been with both D and B Squadrons in 22 SAS, Kevin went on to join the permanent staff of C Squadron 21 SAS (TA), where he rose to the rank of squadron sergeant-major. When he retired from the British Army, Kevin went back to Oman to work with the sultan’s Special Forces.

  Kevin was an exceptional SAS soldier, with a terrific sense of humour, one of the Regiment’s immortal characters and a great friend.

  SERGEANT MICK ‘GINGE’ TYLER

  Mick Tyler was the very first SAS soldier I met, although I didn’t know it at the time. When I first came to Hereford to attempt Selection at the tail end of 1963, I arrived by train with about ten others from an assortment of units, all feeling a bit nervous, all pretty unsure of what to expect. When we got outside the railway station we were all a bit surprised to find that there was no reception committee. For us, all of whom had been part of the British Army in the 1950s or gone through National Service, it was a strange sensation to turn up as ‘new boys’ at what felt
like a new posting or training course and not have a sergeant or corporal there to meet you, bristling with menace, razor-sharp creases in the battledress (BD) trousers, impossible shine on the boots and a voice like a foghorn.

  We looked around, but saw no such thing. Eventually, we noticed a green-coloured 3-ton Bedford RL truck, but no driver in evidence. We wondered at first if it was some sort of initiative test. Maybe we had to drive ourselves to the camp. Maybe there was a map or some kind of instructions in the truck cab? Before we could decide what to do, a scruffy-looking soldier approached us with a Daily Mirror under his arm and a half-eaten bacon sandwich in his hand. What was he then? The base dogsbody sent to collect the next lot of hopefuls in between taking out the garbage and polishing the real SAS soldiers’ medals? No, this was ‘Ginge’ Tyler, a fully badged, fully qualified SAS trooper. He’d been killing time while waiting for us by having a brew (mug of tea) in the refreshment room on the platform. This, then, was our introduction to the SAS.

  Already a seasoned soldier by then, Ginge came from a military background, although he’d be the first to admit that it wasn’t exactly the same sort of pedigree as the SAS’s Colonel Viscount John Douglas Slim or General Sir Peter Edgar de la Couer de la Billière. Ginge’s military heritage comes courtesy of his father, who was serving in the army when Ginge was born in 1939, and his four brothers, all of whom joined the army. Ginge didn’t see a great deal of his father when he was growing up during the war as he was away so often, but when the war was over that situation didn’t change much. His dad deserted them and sold the small house that they lived in, leaving them without even a roof over their heads.