by Roger Cole
Tomorrow would be a routine day. Breakfast, get used to the monsoon, then off to the range to zero their weapons before an extensive briefing and then deployment all over the djebel.
Well that was the plan. But as they slept, 500 heavily armed insurgents were moving silently across the djebel, ready to converge on Mirbat. The rebels knew that the British Army had back-up troops at Salalah, just forty miles from Mirbat. They also knew that given the appalling weather they might as well be on the other side of the moon.
As the SAS men approached the Battle of Mirbat, it felt like the end of days, the burned down fag end of war when the last ones standing were a few regular soldiers, some old men and a handful of teenage boys.
8
And Then The Rains Came
16 July 1972. A few days before the battle, Jeff Taylor, one of the soldiers from G Squadron, who had arrived to take over from B Squadron, was sent to Mirbat to set up the handover and get the sort of face-to-face briefing that can never be included in official reports.
Meanwhile, as G Squadron prepared to leave the UK the night before the battle, from all across the desert the rebels began to gather on the Djebel Ali, a range of hills about 1,000 yards above the fort at Mirbat. In the distance they could see the town clearly, but they were invisible, camping deep in the wadis, out of sight. As they moved through villages in parties of forty at a time, they sent security screens ahead to make sure that there were no leaks or reports back to the British.
Shortly after dusk, one such party went past the SAS outpost at Taqah. They engaged each other in heavy fire for an hour, with slight injuries on both sides, before the rebels disappeared into the night. The SAS men had never seen the rebels travelling at night in such numbers and they called it into the Intelligence Unit attached to the army headquarters at Um-el-Ghawarif. Two other SAS troops called in similar reports. For weeks now the intelligence staff at regiment headquarters had picked up rumours that something big was planned but none of their spies or the SEPs was able to provide any more details.
All they knew was that the rebels were moving round the djebel in large numbers and had been for weeks now, so this report was just one more in what was now a familiar pattern – just one of those unexplainable events in the midst of conflict. For security reasons, each SAS unit could only communicate directly with headquarters so the SAS bases could not warn each other, and the men at Mirbat only found out about these contacts years later.
By midnight, the night before the battle a huge rebel force had gathered on the Djebel Ali.
The rebel leaders knew what they were doing. It was a brilliant piece of military planning and execution, gathering 500 fighters, the elite of their forces, to a single spot on the Djebel Ali.
The men had been told they were going to attack Sadh, a small fishing village east of Mirbat. Only their most senior officers knew the real plan: kill all the British soldiers in Mirbat and then raise their flag over the town, declaring it a free socialist republic – Dhofar for the Dhofaris. The Sultan’s local representative, the Wali, who functioned as mayor, chief of police and high judge for the town and immediate surroundings, would be killed, along with all his men. In the best local tradition, the bodies of the Wali and the SAS would then be decapitated and displayed, their pictures sent round the world courtesy of Reuters and Associated Press.
Once they were embedded in the town, the Front knew they would be impossible to dislodge. Historically, the Dhofaris who lived on the coast were traders not warriors, settlers rather than nomads. As civilians, they wanted a peaceful life and would happily go with whichever side they thought was winning. The rebels knew their people well. Once they had taken the town, the tribal elders who had supported the British would switch back and their people would follow. As a policy, hearts and minds was great, but at this stage of the Dhofar War it only ever gave the SAS a fragile grip. The reality was that for all the SAS’s success in winning over the locals, they would have switched sides and gone with the victors, whoever they were.
After consolidating their position at Mirbat, the rebels’ plan was to use the captured British weapons, especially the 25-pounder cannon, march on and take Salalah. Once the capital fell, Dhofar would be theirs.
As the rebels secretly gathered above them, the SAS prepared the base for handover, oblivious to the threat gathering only a mile away. This was their last day. After four months they were due to go back home to England. That afternoon, the guys at Mirbat tidied up, making sure that everything was ready.
It is a matter of pride in the regiment that handovers should be neat, clean and orderly.
Night falls quickly in the Middle East, the sun visibly dropping out of the sky.
That evening, the SAS men at Mirbat had a final meal, swapped a few stories and reminiscences and listened to some music on their cassette players, Easy Rider for some, Bob Dylan for Roger Cole as he wrote home to his new wife.
Darling Pauline
How were you today, my love? Fine I hope, and Natasha.
Well love, this is my last letter to you because after this one goes out we have no more aircraft until the 20th when we are taken back to base camp to wait for our flight to England. So, as you can see, it won’t be worth my writing because I will be back before the letters. As yet, I have not received any mail since the one you wrote on the 3rd; still the aircraft which takes this one out may bring some in, so I will have to wait.
We might only stop at Cyprus for one hour or so, so no chance for me to do some shopping. They won’t let you out of the airport if you’re on a short stopover; still it means we get home faster so that’s something.
How is the dog? Does she still play with the kids? I hope she remembers me and doesn’t bark at me like last time. That was funny!
How do you think Natasha [their daughter] will take to me after all this time? I hope she does not cry, because what a welcome home – the dog barking and Natasha crying and I expect even the goldfish will jump out of its bowl, ha ha! Still I have you.
Have you told anyone else except your mum and dad that we were going to try for another baby?
I will close now, my love. I love and miss you both. You will see me seven days after you have read this, so it won’t be long. Give Natasha a big kiss from her daddy and Bess a big pat and yourself ten million kisses.
See you soon.
Thinking of you both all the time, I love you both
Roger
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Roger licked the flap and sealed the letter up and then the men got their heads down for the night, feeling safe and secure in the house they had occupied for the previous four months. The base was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence about three feet high. Above the town, up on the djebel, the SAS had stationed a small picket. Nestled down in their sangar were six local gendarmerie, keeping watch over the town, ready to raise the alarm if they spotted the enemy. By now, the soldiers and police had been equipped with TOKAI short-range walkie-talkie radios and knew how to use them. This was the thin, electronic thread of life linking the gendarmes to their comrades in the town below. As they snuggled down, trying to stay dry in the incessant drizzle, just a short distance away several hundred guerrillas were gathering silently on top of the Djebel Ali.
The PFLOAG leaders gathered their men together. What had previously been a tightly kept secret was now shared with everyone. The plan was a simple one, straight out of the communist rule book. It was neither subtle nor clever.
From the top of the djebel to the town below it was about 1,000 yards. The PFLOAG commanders and their troops knew the area well, having walked round it many times during the day. Below them was a perimeter fence and beyond that were three key buildings. The Wali’s fort was manned by some ‘askaris, old soldiers armed with even older guns. The rebels dismissed them as insignificant. Next to that was the BATT house, but the rebels knew there were only eight, possibly nine, British soldiers there and that they were relatively lightly armed. Seven hundred yards away w
as the small fort used by the local gendarmerie. It had a tiny courtyard, with all the bedrooms arranged round the ground floor. Provided they kept lobbing mortars and grenades into the courtyard, they could keep the few policemen there trapped in their rooms.
From where they sat on top of the Djebel Ali, that seemed like the total enemy strength, that plus six gendarmes in a sangar just a few hundred yards away – and the plan was that they would be the first to die.
The rebel soldiers were tired and hungry. Many of them had walked for more than twenty-four hours, some of them more, to reach Mirbat. They had carried all their weapons and ammunition. Not for them the luxury of planes or helicopters – maybe a few donkeys for the lucky. Everything they needed for the battle ahead they had brought with them. It was the single biggest array of fire-power put together by the Front throughout the war.
The rebels were desperate for victory and they had emptied their armoury to deliver it. Assembled on top of Djebel Ali were half a dozen Chinese mortars of different sizes as well as an awesome array of Russian-made fire-power, including three Shpagin heavy machine-guns, a couple of Guryanov medium machine-guns, fifteen RPD (Ruchnoy Pulemyot Degtyarev) light machine-guns and four Degtyarev light machine-guns. Like the British, the Russians were fighting this war on the cheap. All their best kit was in Europe defending their own backyard. The machine-guns they supplied to their allies in Dhofar were all designed in World War Two or before. That was the downside. The upside was that all these weapons were battle-tested, reliable and lethal – the RPD light machine-guns were still being used in Afghanistan thirty years later. As well as the sustained fire-power these automatic weapons gave them, the rebels had half a dozen rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
One of the great mysteries of small wars is how second-hand weapons turn up in the most unusual places. Included in the rebels’ kit were a couple of Carl Gustav anti-tank weapons, which were also very good at taking out small buildings. These weapons were made in Sweden by Bofors, historically one of the world’s great munitions manufacturers. They looked like a short drain pipe and fired 84mm shells from the shoulder. Just a few years before they had been in a British Army storeroom in Aden and were now going to be used against the SAS, some of whom had fought in that very war. All the men who were not equipped with some sort of automatic weapon carried an AK-47 rifle and ammunition.
AK-47 stands for Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947. It’s the weapon of choice for insurgent forces everywhere in the world, instantly recognisable by the curved magazine. The AK-47 is the brainchild of Mikhail Kalashnikov, a former Soviet tank commander, who designed it just after the end of World War Two. There are more of them manufactured than all other assault rifles put together.
The AK-47 is the perfect assault rifle, designed to be used by small groups of soldiers, firing on automatic at short-range. It is not particularly accurate at distance, but devastating close up. It is easy to clean and, most importantly, it is soldier proof and virtually impossible to damage. Regardless of the weather conditions, it will always fire and rarely jam, unlike most other weapons.
High above the town, tired but massively armed, a rebel army of 400 soldiers plotted Mirbat’s downfall. Just a few miles away, another back-up force of 250 was also ready to join the battle.
While it was still dark, the rebels’ plan was to open up with the mortars and the Carl Gustavs at 0300, using the night and the low monsoon cloud as cover. This would be followed by an immediate full-on assault on the BATT house and the town. The wadis, cut deep into the rock by thousands of years of rains crashing off the djebel, were like deep World War One trenches. The rebels were going to slip quietly down the mountainside onto the plain, where the wadis would swallow them up, giving them cover and protection as they advanced towards the small number of men protecting the big prize.
They unpacked their Chinese 82mm mortars, knowing that the town was well within range. The men were hungry, tired and fidgety. Their commanders restored morale, telling them that they would soon be having breakfast in Mirbat, where they would all be hailed as conquering heroes, their names written into history as the soldiers who liberated their country from the colonial overlords and their puppet, Sultan Qaboos.
But as so often in this war, outside circumstances prevailed against the rebel forces.
Shortly before 0300, just as they were getting ready to attack, the mist clouds parted and the rain, which had backed up over several days, dropped from the sky, thick, heavy rods of water. For the next two hours all the rebels could do was hunker down, try to stay warm and focused on the battle ahead. Their commanders cursed and complained. They had lost two key advantages: surprise and the cover of darkness.
Deserts are often cold places at night, and in a thunderstorm this was no place to stay. The rebel commanders knew they had to go that morning or morale would collapse and even their crack fighters would lose the will to go on.
Shortly before 0500, the thunderstorm eased, to be replaced by a thick, misty darkness. The rebels set up a line of mortars down in the wadis so they could not be seen from the BATT house. On top of the hill they set up their Shpagins, big Russian machine-guns, firing 12.7 calibre bullets. The Shpagin was a beast of a gun. It could rip through light armour and bring down a plane. Mirbat and the SAS fort were both well within its range.
The Front commanders knew that there were four juicy targets, waiting down below their mortars: the BATT house, the gendarmerie fort, the Wali’s fort and the base’s big gun, a 25-pounder. A direct hit on any of them would be game changing. Now, in theory, it was a numbers game. Fire enough mortars and one or two should hit one of the four targets below.
Less than a few hundred yards away, in a large rock sangar, six young gendarmes were on night duty. It was bigger than the average sangar, about fifteen feet by nine, constructed of sandbags and large rocks and about three feet deep, like all the others. Every night, for the previous twelve months, half a dozen gendarmes had gone up on to the top of the djebel, each one carrying a Belgian FN rifle for the night shift.
Guard duty is the same all over the world and has been for centuries. One or two soldiers go on watch and the rest sleep for a couple of hours and then they swap round. In the British Army it’s called ‘stag’. At Mirbat it was no different. There was no indication that this night would be any more eventful than any other, so once the drizzle turned into heavy rain the gendarmes all covered themselves with groundsheets and whatever else they had to stay dry.
Shortly before 0500, the rain finally stopped and the largest force ever assembled by the People’s Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Gulf was finally ready. Their moment of destiny was upon them.
They had already established a line of 82mm mortars on the Djebel Ali just over 1,000 yards from the town. Then they split up, one group ready for the frontal attack, one group fanning east round the town and finally one group taking a Shpagin to the north-west of the town. They now had Mirbat surrounded. The doors of the trap were shut, the keys turned and the locks bolted. With heavy cloud cover above, the town was sealed off.
They knew from their own intelligence-gathering activities over the previous months that their first task was to remove the local gendarmes in the stone sangar: young policemen hunkered down on their haunches, trying to avoid the cold puddles that had gathered on the sangar floor. The attack had to be done quickly and in total silence.
The rebel commander ordered a small platoon of his best fighters to take them out. His men started to crawl across the desert floor trying to reach the sangar without being spotted. The ground was rough – small rocks and the occasional bit of scrub. There were some paths but even in the total darkness the rebels avoided them. In this war, only the stupid and the about-to-be-crippled ever walked on well-trodden paths.
The rebels got to the edge of the low stone walls without being seen and drew their commando hunting knives. For centuries, the Dhofari tribesmen had carried the khanjar. But this was a modern war and that meant m
odern weapons: commando knives with edges as sharp as a razor blade. They reached the sangar, rolled over the sides and took the police officers by surprise, some still under their groundsheets, trying to stay dry. The rebels managed to kill four, grabbing them from behind and slitting their throats from ear to ear. But in the fight, two of the young Omani policemen escaped, fleeing into the night. One shot was fired – a violent, bright muzzle flash in the dark – which shocked everyone. The hot bullet seared through the dark, flying away harmlessly to land somewhere far away on the djebel.
A minute before, the sangar had smelt of cold breath, wet clothes and sleep. Now, in just a few seconds, it was a lethal cocktail of hot sweat, freshly spilt blood and the sweet stench of recent death.
Knowing that this sangar gave them a clean line of sight to the BATT house and the Wali’s fort they set up one of their Shpagin heavy machine-guns here.
Now convinced they had been heard, the rebel commanders had to adjust their plans. This was the second time they had done so and the battle was still only minutes old.
They had been rumbled – but not in the way they thought.
9
Wagin Rubsha!
The gunshot had been so loud, magnified by the silence before, that the rebels were convinced that the British soldiers below them in the town must have heard it. But they had not. What betrayed their presence was one of the gendarmes using his short-range TOKAI radio as he fled into the darkness. Hiding behind a rock, quivering in fear that at any moment he might feel the cold edge of a knife, the gendarme managed to contact the fort down below.
The gendarmerie had kept their discipline and the night sentries were awake, sitting around as police officers on duty do, chatting idly, with the radio crackling and fuzzing away in the corner. Suddenly, all the police officers jumped. It was the tone of the voice, the harsh whisper of the desperate that did it. ‘We have been attacked. Hundreds of rebels. Several dead. Get help!’