Able Sentry

by John Schettler

  40 Commando under Colonel Hartford was the officer in charge, a cool reliable professional who prided himself on always getting the job done right. The service came to call him their “insurance policy,” after the company that shared his surname. He had sent out scouts in high mobility vehicles racing through the sleepy warren of Maryam to the main Imram Road that would cut through the hills to the site of the Aden Refinery.

  Near the Farouq Mosque, they ran into a Yemeni Military police patrol wondering what all the noise out west was. The MP’s high tailed it to the Army armored car troop that was guarding the road near the Salah al-Din Post office. It seemed odd that the famous Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria who ended the 88 year reign of the Crusaders in Palestine, would lend his name to a post office 839 years after his great victory at the Horns of Hattin, but there it was.

  The Yemeni Guard had four AFV’s blocking that road, which slowly gained elevation as it wound its way into a pass through the rugged highlands. There was a single old French AML H90 Armored car, and three AML HE 60’s. Those were four wheeled cars, with a small turret mounting twin 7.62mm machine guns, but the H90 had a 90mm rifled gun turret. That had a lot of clout, allowing the armored car to punch well above its weight class for a vehicle that weighed no more than six tons. It was definitely something that the two British scout teams did not want to fool with, so they reported it to the LZ, as it would be fair game for the Apaches.

  * * *

  The Chinese garrison commander at Aden was Yang Jun, a veteran of twenty years in the Army. He had watched the naval duel the last two days with growing concern, for he realized that Aden was now isolated, and very far from any support from China. When Nanchang returned alone, his spirits fell, and the next day the proud destroyer was sunk. Captain Jiang Li survived that last battle, wounded, wet, bedraggled, but safely ashore, and the two men spoke that night in the military hospital south of the refinery near the southern coast of Little Aden.

  Major Yang Jun realized how much face the Captain had lost with his ship, and so when he came in, he proffered a rare bow.

  “Shin-ko-la,” he said quietly, the Chinese encouragement that meant ‘working hard.’ “You have fought well, and honorably,” he continued. “There is no shame in the loss of Nanchang, for you were clearly outnumbered by the enemy. Now, my only hope is that the soldiers under my command will fight as stubbornly and proudly as you have. And yes, we too may be outnumbered by the enemy, but we will show them our fire. We will resist to the last, as you did. I am proud to stand here before you, so do not worry. The Army will take up the fight now, and we will win.”

  That was quite a boast considering the caliber of the troops the Colonel would be facing that night, but victory begins in a moment of determination like that, and Yang Jun was set on measuring up to the example made by the Navy. Yes, it was Shin-ko-la, even in defeat, and that was one reason why China had risen so dramatically, and with such speed to take its rightful place on the world stage.

  Yang Jun was a short, stocky man, and he would certainly have his work cut out for him that night. On Little Aden, he had a single reinforced company, with three infantry platoons, an AA section with 23mm guns near the refinery, and three MG sections that were guarding the RO/RO Berth, docking pier, and the bridge on the Burega Road that crossed an inlet separating Little Aden from the mainland to the north. He would be outnumbered four to one, and by men who were among the best trained and most capable warriors in the world. Yet he had been told to guard this place, and that was what he would do.

  That night, when he heard the thump and flutter of helicopters, he knew his time had come, yet he was also wise enough to pick up a telephone and call the Yemeni barracks to the north and ask for help. There, the Presidential Guard Battalion billeted in the area had three more infantry companies, with twelve more armored cars and a dozen M-60A3 tanks they had bought from the United States two decades earlier. That armor could make a difference here, and Yang Jun urged the Yemeni Colonel to come quickly.

  03:00 Local, 5 JAN 2026

  The sound of armor rattling and whining along the hard concrete road woke the city of Khormakser that morning. They had heard small arms fire often at night, and thus gave little attention to the initial skirmish out near the airport. Tanks in the streets, however, were something else.

  They knew war was at hand, having seen the contrails of fighters overhead, and the explosions in and around the city from the Tomahawk strikes. But now something was happening on the ground, which few expected. The Chinese had hidden four more tanks at the university about two klicks south of the airport, and they advanced north in the darkness, with several WZ-551 APC’s. They mustered at the Yemen Airways building near the terminal, and then launched a counterattack, expecting to overrun an Australian commando troop that had been flanking the terminal to the south on the road. It was 7th Troop, SAS, and the men quickly dispersed into the buildings on either side of the street.

  They could clearly see the tanks with night vision, while remaining mostly invisible to the Chinese. Four Type -90 tanks led the advance, but saw nothing ahead of them until something danced down the street towards the head of the column and plopped down on the lead tank from above. The boiling explosion brought the tank to a standstill, and seconds later a second missile struck and disabled the number two tank. The US made Javelins had stopped the column, but now the APC’s veered around the burning tanks and started firing in all directions, eight vehicles sending out a fusillade of steel that zipped down the street and ricocheted off the stone buildings.

  Withering counterfire came from a 40mm auto grenade launcher, and the man portable Carl Gustav M4 carried by the SAS. That was a shoulder fired AT weapon, a 70mm recoilless rifle that was just about 40 inches long, and weighing only 15 pounds. Capable of firing 12 rounds per minute, it was lethal against the lighter armor on the APC’s, and soon six of the eight vehicles were burning wrecks. That stopped the attack, as the last two Type-90 tanks backed off, their coaxial MG’s firing at nothing in particular. The Chinese had sent the armor in without infantry support, and they paid a heavy price for that mistake. Their only answer was to start calling down mortar fire on the suspected locations of the Australian commandos.

  Now the fight for the large terminal building was on in earnest, the glass doors shattering under automatic weapons fire, as the troops rushed in. The Chinese were firing from behind the ticket counters.

  “What kind of bloody customer service is this?” said a Corporal.

  “Bloody Oath!” came the Private. “Worse than an extra baggage charge.”

  “Alright mates, we’d best be on point with this. Lay down suppressive fire, and we’ll flank that MG to the right.”

  It was find them, fix them, flank them, finish them, the four F’s of infantry combat, and the SAS were experts at it. That firefight lasted for two hours, and before it was over the building was on fire, with the Chinese infantry driven out and retreating to the northern edge of the city to the south. Both sides had taken losses, and the Aussies set up a medical station near one of the security checkpoints. As the sun began to brighten the skies, the SAS had cleared the airport, but the guard post at the extreme western end of the field had been reinforced by two Yemeni infantry platoons, which forced off an SAS MG team that had been watching the place.

  That post was important, because it sat at the southern end of the causeway road which crossed the water to the north. The Yemeni Presidential Guard could use it to get to the airport, and the Aussies had been tasked with taking and holding the post to cut that road. Yet the fighting for the terminal and Yemen Airways buildings had been so intense that they could not detach a Sabre to look after it.

  The loss of that outpost had opened a route that was going to cause a world of trouble for the SAS, because the Yemeni Presidential Guard battalion was now on the move.

  Chapter 9

  On Little Aden, the Royal Marines sent a full company to kill those Panhard armored cars, and then c
leared the MP guard post on the road in the pass leading to the refinery. Once the enemy positions were seen to be mostly to the east, Colonel Phillips ordered two companies to mount up for a quick helo ride low over the hills where they landed well down the road from that post. The Chinese Company was now just able to defend the east cape, with the Aden Refinery, the settlement of Kod-al-Namer, and then the Oil Port with the RO/RO berths.

  Colonel Hartford wasted no time making his move on the facility. In truth, the old British Petroleum facility was the secret gem in the mission that he had been told to secure. Oil facilities the world over were now premium targets of opportunity, and getting this one, with its vast diesel and oil bunkerage tanks, was a primary objective. Whether it could be held for any length of time remained to be seen, but he was going to take it, and as painlessly as possible where the equipment and facilities were concerned.

  By 09:00 there was fighting in and among the oil tanks, which required good fire discipline to avoid setting off one of those tanks. Everywhere, on both fists, the Chinese were now refusing to budge, and it was taking a lot of fire to wear them down.

  It was at that hour that the mission took a turn for the worse. The armored contingent of the Presidential Guard had arrived with twelve M-60A3’s, and armored cars, and they were moving on the airfield from the north, well behind the SAS. Four tanks ground their way over the causeway, and began attacking the east end of the airfield, with support from a platoon of infantry and four more armored cars. This fight had been the toughest, for the SAS had been up against two full companies of Chinese Mech infantry at the airport, and now that force was swelling to battalion strength with the arrival of the Yemeni troops.

  A call went out to the Apaches and those six predators rose from the LZ’s again and circled out over the Arabian Sea before swinging north again towards the airport. They came in with fire and Brimstone, quite literally. The Apache’s carried twelve each and the missiles ate up that armor, smashing and destroying external systems, gun mounts, and busting tracks. With a dual mode seeker, it rarely missed its target, a fire and forget system. The tanks were penetrated by a tandem AT warhead, with two charges and an armor piercing dart.

  That attack was able to kill or disable nine of the twelve Yemeni tanks, attacking them through the thinner top armor, and also killed three armored cars. When engaging targets, the missile had proved to be over 98% effective, and that relieved the immediate pressure on the flank and rear of the SAS positions.

  The fighting continued house to house, building to building, but in this Colonel Sullivan’s SAS had a qualitative edge that kept them moving forward. On Little Aden, the refinery was cleared and secured by 15:00, and 40 Commando was consolidating there after fifteen hours of operations. They would wait and rest until darkness before moving to clear the remainder of the cape, and the Oil Port.

  “Hartford here. What’s going, Sully?”

  “Primary clear, but we had to deal with a lot of Yemeni armor.”

  “We’ll here’s the good news. Canberra has arrived and they’re moving the four aces ashore now. You get them all, hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades.”

  “Roger Four Zero. Nice and generous of you. We’ll put them to good use. Over.”

  As darkness fell, the Chinese on Aden’s right fist had had enough, and they began retreating south through the crowded narrow streets of Khormakser. They would reform along the two roads that led to the big caldera, and the city of Aden itself. This fight was far from over, because the bulk of the infantry of that Presidential Guard Battalion had been stationed in Aden, six platoons guarding the harbor and oil terminal. By midnight, Little Aden had been taken in the west, the airport secured in the east, and Khormakser cleared. Now only the main volcanic caldera, Aden itself, remained on the objective list.

  The plan was to consolidate, move the wounded out by helicopter, and bring in reinforcements. The Australian 2nd Commando Regiment would be moved in next by helicopter, landing at the international Airport. More Royal Marines would arrive, this time with vehicles and even a few Challenger tanks off the Australian LSD Choules. That ship had been a British Bay Class vessel, purchased by Australia some time ago, and now it rejoined its old fleet for Talisman Sabre.

  With the heavy APC’s and tanks getting ashore, the push south along the Isthmus to Aden was carried out quickly under cover of darkness. Colonel Hartford of 40 Commando radioed Prince of Wales to say he had secured all objectives on Little Aden, and the RO/RO berth was ready to receive cargo or equipment. That could put four more Abrams tanks ashore, and more APC’s and Hummers. As these vehicles arrived, the Royal Marines had wheels, but they really weren’t going anywhere. Now that they had the refinery and Oil Port, their mission was to hold it. There was still the Army of Yemen out there somewhere, and they would not take kindly to the occupation of Aden by foreign troops. The ex-British colony was now to become a fortress outpost by the sea connected to a hostile shore.

  But first they had to take and secure that right fist….

  * * *

  “Freddie, we’re back,” said Wells. He had visited Aden as a very young man, back when the place was still a British colony. When the report came that Little Aden was secured, he remembered those long hot afternoons, drinking a mint julip or iced tea at the BP Club along the southern shore. He always wanted to see the place again, yet never thought it would be like this. Soldiers and old salts in the service had always called those two dangling volcanic outcrops “the Balls of Yemen,” and now the Royal Navy and Australian contingent literally had that country by the balls.

  “We’ll get the main island today,” said Wells. “The question now is holding the place. Yemen has an army, and I’ve no doubt that some of it is heading our way this hour. We’ve been cleared to move to heavy interdiction in that event. What’s happening on the ground?”

  “Aussies just took the Aden Mall,” said Sir Frederick. “A shame the Chinese had to make the place a battle zone. They say it was trashed—damn near burnt to the ground.”

  They could see the thin columns of smoke rising from the lower end of the isthmus where that mall was located. There were still some tough nuts to crack as they started to fight their way into Aden. There was high rugged ground where the isthmus jointed to the island, and the only roads into the city were at the north and south of that terrain. Some of the SAS troops scaled the high ground from the north side, and took up overwatch positions along its southern ridge line, which dropped off steeply towards the city below.

  The south road led to the town called Crater, and the small island fortress of Sirah. The north road fed into the main city, which was north of the caldera wall. That area near the harbor was the Hafoon and Al-Ma’ala district, and on the far west of the island was the At-Tawahi district. Collectively, they were Aden, and in places the stucco houses were crammed tightly together, with narrow streets and alleyways that would make combat there a nightmare. Knowing this, the Chinese troops were deliberately defending in the civilian areas, like the new shopping mall that had just been trashed and set on fire.

  With Little Aden secured, and relief troops coming in there, some of the Royal Marines of 40 Commando were going to mount up and fly over to At Tawahi to have a go at the main port from that direction. Lieutenant Lawton’s B Company got the job, eager to get on with the mission, in spite of the weariness. They would land in a cleared area just behind a quay on the cape. The draft was only three meters here, so only small craft used these piers and docks. As the men moved north to the coast road, just a thousand feet away, they saw several sunken patrol craft near the piers.

  It wasn’t until they reached the Tourist Quay, just west of the main harbor, that they began taking small arms fire from Yemeni infantry. Lawton sent a platoon through a built up area south of the quay, and they reached the M1 thoroughfare near the memorial to the Unknown Soldier. A wooded park, still named for Queen Victoria, was on their right, and it would provide cover to allow them to continue that flanking mo
vement.

  “Sergeant, get sniper teams up on the roofs,” said Lawton, a broad shouldered, thick chested man. “We’ll want that building across the street for the javelin teams. Set up the mortars in that wooded hollow behind us.”

  Lawton waited, seeing where the enemy strength was, and he was going to use his Javelins to blast those positions to hell. The building across the street had a straight shot across an inlet from the Tourist Quay, giving the Javelin teams a perfect line of fire to a building on the other side that was heavy with enemy troops. Once that strongpoint was reduced, the battle for the west port was on. The main quay was three kilometers to the east, but that was work for the Australians.

  Over the next hours, the slow, difficult task of urban assault continued, slowly compressing the Yemeni defense, but by noon on the 5th of January, Lawton’s Royal Marines met the Australian SAS near a big flour mill company out near the main quay.

  The rest was done with mirrors, and resistance at Aden would end by sunset that day. Just after dark, the US RO/RO ship Charlton arrived and entered the port bringing vehicles, APC’s and those four Abrams tanks. That put the iron bolts in the British hold on the port, returning at last to another old imperial outpost.

  “Strange,” said Wells. “All this was once just a way station in the British Empire. Coming back to it now, I realize just how far we’ve fallen. The Royal Navy once ruled the world, and that old saw was quite right—the sun never did set on the British Empire.”

  Sir Frederick listened stoically, sensing the nostalgia in the Admiral’s remarks. “What’s all that news today from Sinai about?” he inquired. Captains were not invited to the big briefing table, but he guessed that the Admiral might know a good deal more than what he was hearing on the radio.