Lawrence's Legacy
Arabia 1948 -59

With Palestine evacuated in the June of 1948, the British Army had no footholds left in the area it had expelled the Turks from during the first World War but the R.A.F still maintained bases, by treaty rights, in Iraq and Jordan. Both these countries relied on their old guardian, Britain, for military aid. By the closing days of 1948, the Israelis were free to advance to the Gulf of Aqaba and seize the port of Aqaba, which the British had built during their mandate.

King Abdulla of Jordan made an appeal to Britain for direct and immediate aid and as a result the 1st Battalion of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment were despatched from El-Ballah by the Suez canal, shipped off in two frigates with full supporting arms, and with some tanks of the 4th R.T.R, arrived at the port of Aqaba on the 5th of January 1949. The Israeli advance had reached the head of the gulf by March, and the Battalion took occupation of the small fishing harbour of Eilat, about 4 miles from Aqaba. The Battalion group stayed on at Aqaba changing every six months by relief from Egypt.

On July the 20th 1951 King Abdulla of Jordan was assassinated by a Palestinian extremist, and in the years that followed the Kingdom of Jordan pulled away from the British embrace, through leverage by the Nationalist fervour raging from Cairo to Tehran. The most wounding blow to British ambition and pride was on March 1st 1956, when it was struck by King Hussein, Grandson of Abdulla. Hussein dismissed his family's faithful servant the British General Glubb Pasha from command of his army, the former Arab Legion, and thus broke a brotherhood in arms of some fifty years standing. The officers seconded from the British Army, including three Brigade Commanders had to go, leaving only British technicians. These Officers bade a brief goodbye to their men and discarded their shermaghs (Arab headdress), which signalled an end of an era that began with Lawrence of Arabia and started the seeds of the Suez intervention.

On October 22nd an election in Jordan was won by the party dedicated to abolition of the treaty with Britain, and to form a military union with Egypt and Syria, who were committed to an all-out attack on Israel. The British force at Aqaba, uncertain of whom to expect an attack from, included the 10th Royal Hussars, a company of the 1st Middlesex Regiment, hastily reinforced by 187 L.A.A. Battery, and a troop of the 40th Field Regiment that was flown from Cyprus on October 30th, could hear the Israeli attack against the Egyptian line near Eilat 4 miles away. The British force manned their positions for two months and prevented the fire from spreading.

March 1957 the Jordanian Government snapped the treaty ties with Britain and for the next few months the British started to remove stores from the two RAF bases and from Aqaba, and on July the 6th 1957 a ceremonial guard from the 10th Hussars and the Middlesex Regiment handed over to the Jordan Arab Army. The British then embarked on the Troopship Devonshire, leaving the shores of Jordan behind. One year and eleven days after this departure, the British returned to Jordan. The United States Government had become as keen to curb the ambition of Egypt and it's union with Syria and made preparations for intervention if requested by any Government of Arabia in 1958. The British contribution being the despatch of the 16th Para Brigade, and much of the 3rd Infantry Division to Cyprus.

During the month of July 1958,the call for help came from King Hussein of Jordan and the 16th Para Brigade responded on the 17th July, with the 2nd Battalion Para touching down on Amman airfield at about 0600 hours July 17th. A flight of Hunter fighters landed in the afternoon followed by Beverly transport aircraft with the 33rd Para Field Regiment and their 75-mm Guns. Their task was to defend the hills overlooking the runway of Amman's aerodrome. On August 7th the 16th Para Brigade received a battalion of the 1st Cameronians who were based in Kenya, flown to Aden, then on to HMS Bulwark the commando carrier that then sailed for Aqaba, and then by plane to Amman. By mid October the situation had eased. The Paratroops then flew to Cyprus, and the Cameronians made the return journey through Aqaba on November 2nd. King Hussein of Jordan bid them farewell and took the salute of the Guard of Honour, which signalled a happy ending to a situation.

The much older sphere of British influence was the territory laying to the east of the Saudi Arabian desert, the Trucial Oman states, the Muscat and Oman. Both had protective treaties with the British and in 1952 with the prospect of oil, King Saud had sent an armed column some 600 miles across the desert, known as the empty quarter, to seize the oasis at Buraimi. The oasis in fact lies some 100 miles beyond the frontier of Saudi, with six of the oases being owned by the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi and the three to the southeast by the Sultan of Muscat and Oman. Both these protectorates were restrained from using force against the Saudis by British diplomacy. The Sultan of Muscat and Oman's Army was mainly Baluchis and Pakistanis, officered by Britons under contract. The Muscat and Oman territory bordered 1,000 miles of coastline, from the Eastern Aden Protectorate to the entrance into the Persian Gulf while Abu Dhabi was more closely tied to Britain, being the most southerly and the largest of the Sheikhdoms, and because of the truces that bound them were named the Trucial States. To preserve the peace inside the Trucial States, the British had set up a small Gendarmerie know as the Trucial Oman Levies with Headquarters at Sharjar.

This force had been expanded to contain the threat of Saudi invasion of Buraimi, mainly by the enlistment of discharged soldiers of the Aden Levies, but a mutiny, in which the British Commander was shot dead, had thrown the process of recruitment into confusion and in 1953 a fresh start was made with the enlistment of local Arabs and the secondment of British officers, and a large cadre of NCOs. By 1955, four squadrons were operational and fully mobile, and in the October of that year were ordered to eject the Saudis from Buraimi.

The Saudis were in occupation of a village and also had a Police Camp about 3 miles away. Both were some 18 miles away from the nearest Levies Fort, which was held by a squadron. Lt-Col. E. Johnson, commanding the Levies, chose the night of 25th October for the attack. One squadron motored straight for the Police Camp driving in an hour before dawn and swiftly rounding up the Saudis without a fight. The other Levie squadron attacked the village during day light with the battle lasting all day, from mud wall to mud wall, and at nightfall the defenders surrendered, having lost about seven killed and the Levies lost two men killed.

British troops returned to the Trucial States to provide security to the region. C Company, 1st King's Royal Rifle Corps were the nearest and could be spared. They came from Dherna Barracks, in Libya, and arrived at Sharjah in the early hours of October 27th 1955, having been flown in six aircraft of the RAF a distance of some 2,000 miles with stops at the RAF stations in Jordan and Iraq. The Company Commander was Captain R Gibbs, the naval base in Bahrain was disused, they had to clean all the rubbish out of the swimming pool and barracks, and there was an American warship in the harbour that ran aground at low water whilst it was trying to make an escape. The Company was soon moving into the jagged countryside in land rovers and this had a stabilizing effect on the situation. On March the 11th, 1956, this same Company of the 60th Rifles were flown at an hours notice to Bahrain, where fierce rioting had broken out under instigation from Cairo and Tehran. The Company found the rioting had been quelled by local forces and did little more than secure the causeway connecting the main island, which contained the naval base, and the smaller one containing the civil and military air bases and Bahrain's largest town, Muharrek.

With Persia laying claim to Bahrain, it was decided to reinforce the present British troops with a second Company of the K.R.R.C, and both Companies were relieved during April and June by companies of the 1st Gloucestershire Regiment from Kenya. By the end of August the Gloucesters were assembled astride the Gulf complete with companies at Sharjah and Dubai. They had to contend with another outbreak of rioting in Bahrain when the Suez Crisis reached its climax. Condemned to inactivity by political wrangling while blocks of flats were burned down before them, D Company was at last let loose to clear the streets of Muharrek, advancing in box formation against a hail of bottles and stones. The rioters had dug deep ditches and built large barricades, but neither obstacle stopped the Gloucesters advance, and the task was completed after the discharge of fifty gas bombs and one round of .303.

The 1st King's Shropshire Light Infantry was hurried out from Kenya to join the Gloucesters but by January 1957 the garrison was reduced to a single battalion of the newly arrived 1st Cameronians, who kept a company in Sharjah and sent another two to Kenya because of the lack of accommodation at Bahrain. Such was their disposition when they were called upon to eject rebels from the Oman half of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. There had been a revolt here in 1955,led by one Ghalib, who claimed independence as the elected Imam of Oman. The Sultan swiftly regained control and Ghalib was sent into retirement but soon his brother Talib arrived on the scene with sixty men of his 'Oman liberation Army'. He succeeded in joining up with Ghalib and the renegade Sheikh Sulieiman. They regained control of Nizwa and the surrounding villages on the Hajar Range 50 miles inland. They were well supplied with machine-guns, mortars, and anti tank mines, some of Russian make and some American.

The Sultan appealed for aid from Britain on July 17, 1957, and the A.O.C. Persian Gulf, Air Marshal Sinclair, was ordered to mount an operation. The commander of the land forces was Brigadier J. A. R. Robertson who was sent from Cyprus. The Sultan of Muscat's troops, The Trucial Oman Scouts (as the Levies had been renamed) and the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) all came under his command. The build up at Fahud, where Robertson had his HQ, was by land and air with the main force taking the long, rough and parched land route with three squadrons of the Trucial Oman Scouts, commanded by Lt-Col. Carter, a squadron of The Sultan's Northern Frontier Force, the Cameronians flew in their D and Support Companies, Ferret scout cars of the 15th/19th Hussars from Aden, and some Royal Engineers.

Beverleys, Hastings and Valettas brought troops and Land Rovers. With the shortage of water in the hills, 20,000 Jerry cans of water were needed. The advance started on the 6th of August and it soon became apparent that the heat was going to be the worst enemy as the troops moved forward in open trucks but the ascent to higher more fertile country brought some slight relief. The village of Izz fell on the 7th,and the column was now within 6 miles of the Rebel stronghold to the south of Nizwa. On the 8th the Scouts attempted a wide flanking movement where they encountered some heavy fire from the caves. Some progress was made but the firefight persisted and Venom aircraft were called in to give support. The Cameronians, with their Vickers and 3inch mortars, also laid down a barrage of fire. The troop of 15th/19th had now arrived and on the night of the 10th they obtained some useful information about the defences. The village of Firq was dominated by a precipitous ridge named Crown Hill but D Company of the Cameronians, by great endeavour, scaled it during the night of the 11th, sending their mortar bombs crashing down on the rebel snipers who tried to interfere.

Most of the rebels, realising their peril, rushed away before daybreak leaving several machine-guns behind. There was no further opposition and by midday the force was inside the walls of Nizwa. On the 12th Carters column linked up with the British-led one from Muscat, which had advanced as far as Izki. Harried constantly by the RAF, the Rebels had retreated to the highest feature of the Hajar Range, the mighty Jebel Akhdar or 'Green Mountain', a stronghold that had its own fertile Plateau that had gained the reputation of being impregnable. Brigadier Robertson was under orders not to attack the stronghold. Having had his Sappers blow up some forts and other Rebel property, he withdrew his troops leaving behind only the 15th/19th Hussars and their main function was to escort oil convoys across the desert wastes of Oman. In November 1957 the Sultan's troops, with support from the 13th/18th Hussars, launched an unsuccessful attack on the Jebel and since the mines laid by the guerrillas were by now threatening the flow of oil, the British Government decided in January 1958 to give the Sultan further aid. Twenty-three army officers, with eight Royal Marine sergeants and certain specialists were seconded to his Army, with five aircraft and pilots seconded from the RAF.

The Chief of Staff of the Sultan's Army, Colonel D. de C. Smiley did not consider the Sultan's Army strong enough to eject the Rebels from the great Jebel, and by pressing the War Minister, Christopher Soames, he obtained the promise of more British troops. The first arrival was the Life Guards with a full squadron operating from Sharjah. Near the end of November the first assault troops arrived, D Squadron, 22 Special Air Service. The S.A.S were on their way home from Malaya and these were the men to lead the assault on the Great Jebel.

Smiley's force had made good progress. A patrol of the Muscat Regiment, under a contract officer, scaled a path up the north side of the Jebel, which gave them a foothold on the plateau. The S.A.S. were quick to exploit this gain by a series of patrol bounds, provoking some counter attacks that were beaten off. Near the end of December the S.A.S. made a night attack on a pinnacle commanding the western approach to the 17-mile long plateau. By scaling with the use of ropes, they gained the surprise and inflicted casualties but the rebels were not to be shifted from their crags and caves. It was cold on the mountain, with hail and even snow, and only three months remained until the summer heat would be too intense to make the operation possible. On January 13th 1959, A Squadron of the S.A.S. arrived, and relieved D Squadron astride the western approach and the next ten days continued with probing attacks. The coup de grace was delivered on the night of January 26th/27th, following a diversionary attack by the North Frontier Force. Lt-Col. Deane Drummond, commanding 22 S.A.S., selected a spur on the south side of the Great Jebel. It rose sheer and contained no track. After dark, D Squadron, with part of A, began the sheer climb.

A few shots were fired at them and a heavy machine-gun, firing from a cave, caused some obstruction but a well-placed grenade knocked it out. For eleven hours the men toiled onwards until after dawn they were on the highest peak. Practically all the Rebel force had been drawn westwards by the diversionary attacks and by now the Rebel leaders had realised that the S.A.S. had gained the summit. The Rebels and their leaders made all speed for Saudi Arabia, breaking through Smiley's cordon.

Cairo Radio reported that 120,000 British troops had made the attack and Moscow added that 13,000 paratroopers had been dropped. Such was the honour accorded to the 1,100 men of the force, who broke the myth of the Jebels impregnability. The cost of the whole operation was fifteen killed and fifty-seven wounded, while mines caused the most casualties.

This was a famous victory for the 22 S.A.S. in particular, for their reward was that most coveted of things, survival. They had previously been faced with dissolution on completion of the task for which they had been raised for in Malaya. It was acknowledged now that they could be of lasting value and the men in the beige berets thus took a permanent post in the British Army.