Major David Bushel joined the army in 1951 as a boy soldier, age 14 years and 6 months.  He joined the Royal Artillery and on passing out joined the 16th Independent Parachute Brigade as gunner in the 33rd Field Artillery, 97 Battery.  At 18 he was offered a place at Officers' School, which for very good reasons he rejected.  He served in most of Britain's small wars from 1955 to the 1970s.  After a while he was offered, and accepted, a place in an Officers' School and passed out as a 2nd lieutenant,  but he soon rose to the rank of Major, commanding some of the first atomic rockets in Germany under British control.  After being out of the country for 12 years, Dave resigned his commission for a bit of family life.

I went to Dahhla. there no maps, so we used blown up air photo,s with a grid superimposed. there were no roads so all movements was along Wadis our guns were stripped down and moved by camel. We were resupplied by airdrops throughout the campaign as there were no helicopters.

Our Infantry were local troops- Aden protectorate Levies. They had no support weapons what so ever. Our base camp was fired on every night from the surrounding hills. All the locals carried weapons and shooting at us appeared to be the main sport.

For some operations we were joined by a section  of machine guns and two armoured cars. these were mainly for defence as we moved through the mountains. Movement was a great and we often had to move back to desert then into a different valleyto get to the next area of operations. It was impossible to dig in, and we built sangers out of the volcanic rock for protection. It was very hot every day but at night the temperatures dropped dramatically . We only saw about ten minutes of rain during out stay.

As the Senior NCO it was a good command with plenty of action in a very hostile environment we had no supplies other than food and ammunition, and return home in the same clothes that we went out in, we also had no pay, but the money useless out there, as there was no were to spend it, therefore we were very well of on our return home.
 

Loading at Aden on to Blackburn Beverly	Unloading at  Dalla Airstrip	Guns being calibrated  on Aden Flats	Action at Mahaw  Waddi 1957	Action at Mahaw  Waddi 1957
Lower Dhala Pass	On the Dhala Pass	View from  Dhala Camp	Fort Thutmion Aden	Manaina Waddi
Engagement of some Yemen mortors	Dhala camp from Gobel Gehaf	End of the runway at Dhala Airstrip	View from Dhala	Re Supply drop at Dhala
Loading the forward trail assembly. Dave centre right	Moving forward by Camel	Near Sana Fort	Dhala Convoy	Guns in action near Ahiz
Action near Sanna	Loading 75mm Pack Howitzer on to camels	Engaging the Tribesmen from Dhala	Dhala airstrip	Samna Fort British & Government soldiers
Beihan	The Suleh or local shopping mall	Vickers machine gun being set up to fire on fixed lines for the night	Behihan Village	Somea
BANG!	Manawa Gun Postion
Armoured Cars and main gun at Sayar	3inch mortar being readied of action	106 mm Recoilless Rifle	On the track	On the track
On the track	On the track	Aden Salt Flats	Setting up camp for the evening. Note the MMGs set out	Old hill fort