SAS Operation Storm

by Roger Cole

  It was going to be a tough year, but then came a piece of good news – though, as was often the case in this war, it was tinged with bitterness. Three British soldiers were awarded the Dhofar Medal.

  A decent man and an honourable leader, John Graham had a persistent beef with the faceless Whitehall mandarins who decided who got medals and who did not. He was thrilled that three of his men had been recognised for their achievements, but wrote in his diary that it was ‘a shame that neither our Special Instructors nor the SAS chaps can get this medal.’

  That was the policy from London. This was a secret war and therefore medals had to be severely rationed. But, as sometimes happens the right hand and left hand acted independently. So while awards were being limited because this was supposedly a secret war, the MOD press office was arranging a front page spread in the Daily Telegraph magazine, complete with photographs of the war in Dhofar and interviews with the key British commanders. This was then spun off into pieces in the Sunday Express and National Geographic magazine.

  So much for a secret war.

  The Ministry of Defence is very resistant to the idea of giving Laba and Tommy Tobin the medals they so clearly deserve. The main argument is that the Battle of Mirbat happened in 1972 and medals cannot be considered after the passage of so many years.

  But consider the cases of Edward Spence and Everard Lisle Phillipps.

  Private Edward Spence of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, which later became the Black Watch, was killed during the Indian Mutiny. He was one of three who volunteered to fetch the body of Lieutenant Willoughby who was killed during the Battle of Fort Ruhya in India. According to the report in the London Gazette, Spence dauntlessly placed himself in an exposed position to give cover to the party collecting the body. He died from his wounds on 17 April 1858, a week after the battle.

  Ensign Everard Lisle Phillipps was a hugely popular junior officer during the siege of Delhi in 1857. He led a small group of soldiers to seize part of the city. Once they had done so, they built a breastwork (a chest-high fortification) to rest behind. The men put in a small two-inch hole so they could keep track of the conflict going on all around them. When it came to his turn as lookout, Phillipps was shot by a stray bullet which came through the hole. Seven members of his battalion, the 60th Rifles, received the Victoria Cross and it was intimated at the time that he would have received the same had he survived.

  Slow-forward half a century to 1906.

  Edward VII, then King of England was petitioned to award the VC to both these men, along with four others.

  Teignmouth Melvill and Nevill Coghill were both killed in the same incident in the Zulu War in 1879.

  During the Matabeleland Rebellion in 1896, in what is now Zimbabwe, Frank Baxter gave up his horse to a wounded comrade who was lagging behind, with the enemy closing in on them. Baxter tried to escape but was shot dead.

  Hector MacLean died in 1897 during the Indian Frontier war. He had gone with five others to rescue Lieutenant Greaves of the Lancashire Fusiliers, who was badly wounded and surrounded by enemy swordsmen. While they were bringing Greaves to safety, MacLean was shot dead.

  Initially, Edward VII rejected the idea of giving these medals posthumously, so many years later. But one woman defeated the system. Lieutenant Teignmouth Melvill’s widow wrote directly to the King. After reading her letter, he simply changed his mind and all six Victoria Crosses were awarded – even though some of them related to actions nearly half a century old.

  All of which proves one thing: if the British establishment wants to do something it will do it and whatever rules are in place will be bent and manipulated to allow it to happen.

  So now it is time for the British government to do the honourable thing and give Tommy and Laba the awards they deserve.

  There is no greater dedication for a soldier than to fight and die on a foreign field for the liberation of a country which is not their own.

  So now, when you have finished this book, if you want to lay some flowers on their graves and grant Trooper Tommy Tobin, number 23966442 and Corporal Talaiasi Labalaba, number 23892771, the honour the Ministry of Defence denied their families and those who fought with them and loved them as great soldiers, then go to St Martin’s Church in Hereford.

  The two men who died from their injuries at Mirbat but were then shabbily treated by the High Command of the British Army are buried just a few feet from each other.

  Neither man received a medal.

  One received no honour at all.

  The other was granted the lowest possible award, Mentioned in Despatches.

  You will find them underneath the cypress tree in the middle of the graveyard.