No. 43 Squadron – RAF Khormaksar, Aden

22 July 1963 – 30 August 1965

“In 1963, trooping to Aden was generally contracted out to civilian operators. I was lucky I suppose in getting a non stop Britannia, when Margaret came out the following January with the children it was on a piston-engined DC-6 which had to carry out a technical stop for fuel in Rome. It was mid day on 22 July when the doors opened on the civilian pan at Khormaksar. The temperature must have been around 37° C (100 ° F) with a humidity of over 70 %. (It got worse at night).

I was met at the steps of the Britannia by a couple of 43 Squadron pilots who happened to be back at Khormaksar carrying some admin tasks. Harry Gill and Tim Robertson soon put me in the picture. It was then that I discovered that the rest of 43 Squadron were up at Bahrain on a two month detachment! The reason was the need to provide a squadron of ground attack aircraft in Bahrain to repel Iraqi tanks if they were to invade Kuwait for the oil. Shades of the first Gulf War! In order to fulfil this commitment each of Khormaksar’s Hunter FGA.9 Squadrons (8, 43 and 208) spent two months up at Bahrain and four months back at Aden. As this detachment was unaccompanied (no wives or children) it was most unpopular with all concerned except for the bachelors.

I was quickly installed in the Mess at Khormaksar which was a substantially built pre-war edifice. Unfortunately non of the public rooms or bedrooms were air conditioned, with the exception of No. 8 Squadron accommodation, more of which later. When I moved into my room I found I would be sharing with Harry Gill who by now was en-route back to Bahrain. The rooms were on the first floor and were huge, with a ceiling fan and large balcony. At this time Khormaksar was probably the largest station in the RAF in terms of numbers of Squadrons, and when I arrived the Station Commander was Gp Capt Michael Beetham.

The Squadrons at Khormaksar at the start of my tour are listed below:

As I had arrived at mid day, and RAF Middle East was still working pre-air conditioning hours (7 am to 1 pm and then sleep or beach) I could not start my arrival procedure until the next day. Physically, Khormaksar was a huge airfield and with no transport it took several days to do the rounds and sign in at all the appropriate offices. Having finally sorted the admin I then had to get on a flight up to Bahrain (RAF Muharraq). After another couple of days I was finally allocated a seat on an Argosy of 105 Squadron which was the ‘airline’ of that part of the Middle East and arrived in Bahrain in early August. Bad mistake – if Aden was hot, Bahrain was indescribable, much hotter and much more humid. I don’t know how our airmen managed to service the Hunters, just to touch the metal skin of the wings or fuselage would have given severe burns. On the social side, even the station swimming pool had to be cooled! Fortunately, unlike Aden, all of the bedrooms and some of the public rooms were air conditioned. The Squadron Commander was Sqn Ldr P. G. Peacock who had brought the Squadron over to Aden from Cyprus in March 1963 and the line up of pilots and aircraft in August 1963 was as follows:

The Khormaksar Hunter squadrons had an establishment of twelve aircraft each, which with 1.3 pilots per aircraft meant around sixteen pilots. As you can see from the above list 43 was just about spot on. The reason that I only have nine aircraft on the list is that, by chance, I may not have flown all of the available aircraft on the Squadron at that time or that there may have some in Tech Wing for third-line servicing.

Back to Bahrain – I flew my first flight with 43 on 16 August 1963 in T.7 XL613. This was an engine air test followed by two circuits. Then on the 21st I carried out a dual handling check again with Sqn Ldr Peacock, which consisted of practise forced landings and more circuits. Then the detachment was over, we left Bahrain in the capable hands of No. 208 Squadron and it was back to Aden. My first trip from Khormaksar was yet another flight in a T.7, XL612 this time, with Sqn Ldr Peacock on a sector recce to introduce me to the delights of the Aden Protectorate.

Unusually, the four Hunter 7s belonged to 1417 flight and were loaned to the Hunter 9 Squadrons as required. 

At last on 5 September I had my first flight in a FGA.9 – XE546. Not surprisingly it was equally as pleasant to fly as the Mark 6, the additions and modifications had not spoilt the performance at all if one allowed for the effect of the higher ambient air temperature. The FGA.9s had an Avon 207 with a little more thrust so the performance was virtually identical to a Mark 6, except that the Aden air temperatures increased the time to height somewhat. However as we were generally flying at low level this did not cause problems.

In the event I was not given long to get used to Aden as just over a week later the Squadron was off on yet another detachment, this time to RAF Eastleigh, Nairobi – Kenya. This time it was purely ceremonial – the squadron was to carry out a formation fly past at the Royal Kenya Show as part of the celebrations for the imminent Independence Day handover. As a new boy I wasn’t one of the Hunter party and instead had to go down to Nairobi in a Beverley with several other pilots and the groundcrew. This was a most uncomfortable trip, which took nearly seven hours lumbering along at 160 knots at (for us) a pretty low level.

I only had two flights at Eastleigh, one a triangular cross country Eastleigh – Mount Kenya – Nundawat – Eastleigh. The following day I was in a fly past over Eastleigh and then shortly after that, the squadron flew back to Khormaksar without me! I was left behind with XE623 which had gone seriously unserviceable. I then had to wait nearly a week for it to be fixed but that was not all. The distance back to Khormaksar was more than a 1000 miles, passing over Northern Kenya and Ethiopia - some of the most inhospitable and desolate terrain in the world. A crash landing would have been fatal and using the good old Martin Baker would have produced the same result only taking a little longer. However the ruling was that a single-engined aircraft on this route must be accompanied by a twin with a navigator, a) to make sure we were going the right way and b) to mark the spot where/if we went down. In my case I hitched a ‘lift’ with a Canberra and so we were pretty compatible. Even so I was pretty glad to see the Gulf of Aden coming up, with Djibouti on the left, and even more so when I was within gliding distance of Khormaksar.

Shortly after the Squadron’s return to Aden, Sqn Ldr Peacock was tourex and he was replaced by Sqn Ldr Phil Champniss. This also coincided with the start of our operational flying. It was not our job to worry about the politics of the situation. We were there to support the Army, to be their ‘mobile artillery’, that was what we had trained for and that was what we looked forward to doing. What seemed to have started it was a civil war in North Yemen (the baddies) spilling over into South Yemen (the goodies). For some years the Egyptians had been fomenting trouble in North Yemen and stirring up the local tribes to the north of Aden with promises of ‘freedom’. This eventually culminated in the Radfan Campaign. But more of this later. One other interesting arrival was in October 1963 when Air Vice-Marshal ‘Johnny’ Johnson was appointed AOC, RAF Middle East Command.

However, as a result of the Egyptian presence in the north, the RAF received an unexpected Christmas present in the shape of a Yemen Air Force IL-14 (Crate) transport. On the 2 December 1963 this aircraft became lost and landed at Lodar (Lawdar), a small up-country air strip to the north east of Khormaksar. It was quickly surrounded by the Aden Protectorate Levies and prevented from leaving. The Egyptian crew were subsequently returned to North Yemen but the aircraft was retained. It was flown to Khormaksar for a short while but eventually was probably shipped back to the UK for closer examination. Lodar was one of the small airstrips used by the Twin Pins and Beverleys for the re-supply of the army and local ‘friendlies’. There were no roads connecting with the outside world and the only transport was by foot, donkey or camel.

But before launching into the flying side I will say a little about the domestic situation as pertained before Margaret and the children came out and before the terrorism started. (we didn’t call it terrorism then, we called it ‘the troubles’). As mentioned above, Khormaksar was a very large station. The Officer’s and Sgt’s messes were attractively built of large chiselled stone blocks and the airmen’s accommodation was of equally high standard. Some of the admin blocks were also permanent buildings but down at Squadron level we were in single story pre-fabs albeit air conditioned. Non of the public rooms or bedrooms in the mess were air conditioned but all of the office accommodation of Flying Wing, Tech. Wing and Admin Wing had the air conditioning humming 24 hours per day. The only exception was the sleeping accommodation of the No. 8 Squadron pilots and the reason was that some time previously one of their pilots had been killed while carrying out an attack on the Air to Ground firing range. As a very useful memorial his mother had provided funds to equip sufficient air conditioned bedrooms for all of 8 Squadron pilots. The Mess public rooms were as to be expected – large, high ceilinged and airy with multiple ceiling fans. But the main attraction was the Jungle Bar, outside, open to the stars with thatched roof and palm trees all around. The only slight draw back to all of this was that the electricity generating power station was just inside the main gate and only a couple of hundred yards away. As it was powered (reputedly) by a Rolls Royce Avon similar to the one in the Hunter, it was difficult to ignore. One rumour had it that it had been intended to be placed on the northern edge of the airfield where it would only have bothered the odd passing camel, but that Works and Bricks had held the plans upside down when constructing it!

When I arrived the station was on a peacetime footing, Middle East variety. Although it would have been quite realistic to work a normal 9-5 day as all office accommodation was air conditioned, the working day was from 07.00 until 13.00 and then back to the mess for lunch and a zizz or down to the beach. The distance from the mess to the flight line was a mile or more and it was no fun hiking it twice a day. For some reason there was no transport provided and so it was either buy a car or motor cycle or use shankses pony. At first I used to hitch a lift to both the squadron and to the beach but as I would need a car when the family came out I bought a second hand Fiat 600 from one of the pilots who was tourex and returning to the UK. In fact it wasn’t only cars that got handed on like this, later on, just before Margaret arrived I employed a children’s Ayah in much the same way. Because of the climate the single officers didn’t need four wheels and so it was fashionable for the bachelors to buy new Honda 50 motor cycles. At that time Honda and Fiat seemed to have the monopoly in Aden.

Apart from driving to the squadron the only other places to go on a daily basis were shopping at Steamer Point and to the beach at Tarshyne which was just a mile or so farther on. So here is a typical day - woken at 06.00 by the batman (a local citizen) with tea followed by a shower and down to breakfast. Dress for a flying day would be khaki shorts and short sleeved shirt with normal UK blue officers peaked cap, long khaki socks and officially, black lace up shoes. However there are two stories here, before going to Aden we were advised to ignore the recommended RAF shorts (’It ain’t half hot Mum’ in style) and nip down to the Indian tailor’s shop just outside the main gate where he would produce short shorts, made to measure in 24 hours. The black shoes which we were expected to wear not only to and from work but also while flying would have been useless in the event of bailing out. So the move here was to pop down to the BATA shoe shop on the Ma’alla Straight and get a pair of desert boots for 30/-. In fact this was one of the few battles that the pilots actually won as later on we were allowed one pair a year, paid for by the RAF. After breakfast it was down to the flight line for Met briefing at 07.00 which was a communal affair for the two Hunter Squadrons and 1417 flight. The briefing did not usually take long as there was rarely any cloud and it only rained once at Khormaksar in the two years I was there. The main problem was in the hot season when strong winds would whip up the sand into dust storms at very short notice. It is worth noting that in the event of such a storm or maybe a crash on the runway there was no nearby diversion. The nearest was the French Air Force base at Djibouti, which was 140 miles away across the Gulf of Aden, to the south west.

After met briefing the pilots returned to their respective Squadrons where the Flight Commanders would lay down the flying programme for the day. As we were a fairly small squadron we did not operate as two flights but all worked together with the Flight Commanders taking turns at planning the flying programme and authorising the flights. The type of training was similar to that of the day fighter squadrons I had previously been on with the exception of air-air firing. We had no capability to tow flags and anyway we were principally ground attack. We did however practice high level battle formation and dog fighting just in case a Mig appeared.

With twelve Hunters on strength there were usually about six or seven available at the start of the flying day. On a non air-ground range day this would usually mean a four ship going off either to practise high level battle formation followed by a dog fight and tail chase, or a low level route to a practise target simulating a rocket and cannon attack. The remaining aircraft would be sent off as a pair or solo on cross countries, aerobatics etc.

On arrival at the squadron after met briefing, the duty Flight Commander would detail the four pilots on the four-ship and outline the task. When the task was to train up newly arrived JPs (junior pilots) the formation would be led by an experienced pilot with another as number three. We were still flying the ‘finger four’ which the RAF had copied from the Luftwaffe in WW2 as it was ideal for both high level and low level operations. The nominated four pilots would go into the briefing room to go through the proposed flight using a blackboard and other aids such as maps and photos of the targets which had been supplied by 1417 Flight. Sometimes however, in order to train up the JPs the positions would be reversed and the experienced pilots would fly as No. 2 and No. 4 in order to monitor the conduct of the trip and provide a debrief on return.

The length of time it took to go operational depended on many factors, the shortest time was taken by pilots who had flown the same role in another ground attack squadron. Next came pilots with plenty of single seat jet time i.e. on day fighters and finally junior pilots who had just come through the training system and who had very few total flying hours. For a 20 year old JP with about 260 hours experience it would take about three to four months to become operational. With someone like myself with two previous fighter tours it took about a month, this was mainly to learn the squadron SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). It is interesting to note that when transferring from one squadron to another, even in the same role, the first thing one was told was ‘forget what you learnt on your last squadron, this is the way we do it here’. On becoming operational, the next step was to become Op 2 and then Op 4. This meant that you were qualified to lead formations of two or four aircraft on operational sorties. Generally only the most senior pilots became Op 4 and of course the JPs rarely made Op 2 until near the end of their tour. It must be emphasised that the training flights and operational flights were being carried out during the same period, with the ops obviously taking priority. This highlighted the difference between training and actual operations. We trained for low level missions to fly below radar cover and avoid SAM missiles but luckily for us the other side did not have these weapons. Thus a typical practice low level strike would be flown in a finger four battle formation at 250 feet and 420 kts. The route would be planned to fly up Wadis to stay below the assumed radar cover and so would involve many changes of course on a typical 200 mile route. When nearing the target an IP (Initial Point) would have been chosen about a mile from the target and at 90° to the track flown. At the IP the leader would open up to full power, pull up sharply to about 3,000 ft, roll over, drop the nose into a dive and hopefully lining up with the target. With the Aden cannons the pipper in the gunsight display was placed smack on the target and the gyro gunsight compensated for wind effect. However the enormous gravity drop of the 3” drainpipe meant that the bottom diamond of the display had to be placed on the target in order to raise the nose to compensate. On actual operations it all changed as the enemy had only small arms and an occasional heavy machine gun. In this case the sorties were still flown in battle formation but at between 3,000 and 5,000 feet. This not only kept us above small arms fire but also made navigation much simpler.

Apart from range firing sorties, the aim was to despatch one or possibly two sections of aircraft to practice RP and cannon strikes. Any singleton aircraft left over would be despatched immediately on low level navigation exercises or high level aerobatic practice. This would introduce a ‘stagger’ into the programme to prevent the groundcrew from being overloaded. After a briefing which took about 30 mins the ‘four ship’ would launch which meant that those not on the first wave could relax and have a coffee or a pint of orange squash. It was during one of these breaks that an ‘eggy round’ might be unleashed. An eggy round was one of those pointless, almost stupid ways that 43 Sqn pilots had of letting off steam. If an individual suspected that those present were too lethargic he would fetch an egg from the fridge, sidle into the crew room and shout ‘eggy round’ and at the same time lobbing the egg towards one of the other pilots. That person had to catch the egg and immediately toss it to someone else. When eventually someone dropped the egg he had to clear up the mess. An eggy round could also occur in someone’s flat or house during a party but was understandably most unpopular with the wives.

The liquid loss due to the heat in Aden was so great that the docs had recommended taking at least ten pints of liquid a day. When in the crew room this was served by our ‘boy’, Salah who came from North Yemen. He was a little chap, although probably middle aged, who had been working for the RAF for many years. His job was to keep the Squadron clean and tidy and serve orange squash, coffee and light snacks. He was married but his wife was in North Yemen so he didn’t get home to see her very often, in fact he told us it was about once every four years! It just so happened that one of his visits home was due in mid 1964. He was granted leave of absence by the Squadron Commander and then made a very surprising request – he asked for a letter from the C/O to help him get across the border to North Yemen. Of course we could not understand this as the letter would say that he was employed by his Country’s mortal enemy, the RAF. However he persisted and was given a letter stating who he was, who he worked for and asking all concerned to give him help where possible. (Perhaps this was how passports started). We awaited his return with interest expecting that the North Yemen army would give him a hard time but in fact it was just the reverse. He used his letter to hitch rides up to the border and then, when he produced the letter to a North Yemen officer at the crossing point, he was treated like a VIP and put on a truck which took him all the way home. His return was in a similar vein and he was a happy little chap when he returned to us.

One of the more unpopular duties for the most junior pilot was tending to the Fighting Cocks. It has been a tradition since WW 1 that wherever No. 43 Squadron was stationed, there would be at least two genuine fighting cocks kept as mascots. This normally posed no problems in the UK but the climate in Aden was hardly conducive to a long life for the cockerels and the turnover proved to be very frequent.

The endurance of the Hunter FGA.9 was such that most sorties, except firing on the range, lasted for about one to two hours and so, with a turn round, each aeroplane could fly twice in a morning provided it stayed serviceable. Thus each pilot would get either one or two trips per day. This serviceability was a factor of the complexity of each succeeding generation of aircraft. When a section of four Meteor 8s (as I flew on Nos. 1 and 63 squadrons) landed they would invariably all still be serviceable. With the Hunter usually one of the four would be unserviceable. With the Lightnings they would all have snags which would prevent them flying again straight away.

In early 1964 I became the Squadron Navigation Officer and as I had always been interested in maps and charts the Aden Protectorate and its rugged terrain was proved to be my biggest challenge so far. There were virtually no roads away from Aden town and so the salient features used for navigation were the coast line, the wadis and up country the escarpment and unusual rock formations. Unlike the Hunter 10, which had one NDB (Non Directional Beacon receiver), the Hunter FGA.9 had no electronic navigation aids. The only means of navigation was the Mark 1 eyeball, a topographical map and a stopwatch. In fact when the Hunters arrived from the UK there was a stopwatch fitted on the instrument panel, but this was removed immediately on landing in Aden, locked in a safe, and only replaced when the aircraft was returned to an MU (Maintenance Unit) in England. The reason being of course that stop watches were a V & A - (valuable and attractive) item and would most likely have been stolen. Hence we all had to buy our own stopwatches and I still have my Minerva Majex to this day. In any event the position of the watch located down at the bottom of the instrument panel was of no use as we flew most of the time ‘heads up’ looking out of the cockpit. To house our own stopwatches the engineers made up an aluminium bracket which was bolted on top of the left hand coming and so was easily viewed whilst looking out of the windscreen. The basic map in use was a 2 million (1:500,000) topo (Topographical) map which provided an excellent depiction of the terrain features. This map was used for all high level work and also low level as far as the IP Initial point. These maps were supplied by the Air Force but for the final run into the target we relied on a larger scale 1:100,000 scale maps which we obtained from the Army. The 2 mil maps were from the same series that we had used in the UK but the army maps were very detailed, brown in colour and extremely accurate. The 2 mil maps had to be covered in clear fablon as coloured chinagraph pencils were used to mark the route to be flown. As practise flights were flown at 250 feet (AGL) and at a speed of 420 kts, it was necessary to put minute (time) marks along the route i.e. every seven miles. Turning points were chosen over or near good landmarks such as distinctive rock formations or bends in Wadis (dry rivers). The map of course had to be folded to a size manageable in the small cockpit of the Hunter and was usually perched on the left thigh. The right thigh had a built-in knee pad for recording the position and details of targets and radio frequencies etc. Once airborne and settled down at 420 kts the stopwatch was started and the minute marks on the map compared to the ground. Even at that speed and height it soon became second nature and folks were rarely unsure of their position (lost). Of course it would have been easy to pull up and get a much better view of the ground but that would have been cheating. The formation leader was the only one navigating, the others flew in a wide battle formation (the finger four which we had learnt from the Luftwaffe in WWll). When approaching the IP (Initial point) the maps would be swapped and the army brown job replaced the 2 mil. The leader would call ‘Approaching IP’ as a warning to the rest of the formation and then ‘Pulling Up’. This was the signal for the formation to pull up to about 2,000ft and for the No. 2 to ease out and drop back, with Nos. 3 and 4 further in trail. The run up to the IP was displaced laterally from the target to allow the leader to roll through 90º before dropping his nose to put the gyro gunsight on the target. Ideally the other three aircraft would attack line astern with about 300 yards spacing. After the attack there was the problem of finding the leader again. In clear weather this was fairly easy but when it was hazy it could be a problem. Usually a prominent landmark some distance from the target was briefed a rendezvous point as a last resort.

The Hi-Lo-Hi technique was used where the target was outside the radius of action at low level. It involved climbing the section to possibly 40,000 ft, cruising at that level in battle formation, to a pre-arranged point followed by a swift descent to a point just short of an IP. Thereafter the attack was made at the familiar 250 ft and 420 kts. After the attack the section would reform and climb to height in battle formation for the cruise back to base. The use of this technique roughly doubled the radius of action of the Hunter FGA.9. However this was never used on actual operations as the target areas involved were all relatively close to Khormaksar. Where real ops were concerned, in the knowledge that the other side had no radar and were restricted to small arms, it would have been foolhardy to fly at ultra low level in range of rifle fire. In addition flights were flown at medium level to ensure accurate navigation to be able to pinpoint the targets precisely. This was most important where we were laying down fire as close as 25 yards to army positions or where the target house or fort was in close proximity to houses inhabited by non-involved civilians.

When fairly close to Khormaksar there were any number of civilian cars and vehicles to be seen on the local roads and tracks particularly on the Dhala Road, the main route north to Saana. However up country it was a different story as before the days of the 4 x 4, the only vehicle capable of tackling that inhospitable terrain were the huge Mercedes trucks. These were always open or canvas topped, and were covered in garish coloured flags and cloth patches which stood out like a sore thumb in the desert terrain. They were always packed with humanity clinging to the outsides and top and usually had a fair cargo of goats and sheep in addition.

Air to ground range

Firing on the air to ground range, which was very close to Khormaksar, was usually organised in periods of about a week at a time. This gave the armourers a chance to get into the swing of things and also the logistics of the range party needed quite a lot of effort. The only two weapon systems we had at that time were the 4 x 30 mm Aden cannons (the name is coincidental) and the 3” drain pipe rockets. The Aden gun was a superb weapon, extremely accurate and lethal when using the HE (high explosive) rounds, with a rate of fire of 1200 to 1400 rounds per minute. This equated to a total firing time of 7.2 seconds but of course the guns were never used this way. Each burst was probably around ½ a second in length. On the range we fired only Ball (solid) shells otherwise the range party along with all of the targets would have been decimated. The use of the Aden gun in the Hunter demonstrated that there is no substitute for real war time conditions for testing weapons. All the firing done previously in the Hunter 6 and earlier models had been under ‘peacetime’ conditions where very few rounds were fired on a range sortie and so when, later on in the Radfan campaign we were firing four guns with 135 rounds apiece, one of the frames in the structure of the fuselage adjacent to the Aden guns began to crack. In order to prevent this, an order was issued that in future only two guns at a time were to be fired. This was achieved by using the Gun Selection Switch which was just outboard of the anti-G control cock. The guard had to be raised and the switch set forward to Inner whereupon only the two inner guns would fire. When the inners had exhausted their ammunition the switch was returned aft to All and then the 2 Outers could be fired.

For political reasons we were not allowed to drop bombs or napalm (which would have been ideal against tanks if we had gone to Kuwait) so we were left with the 3” drain pipe, so called because that is what it resembled and it was just about as effective. Its official title was the ‘No. 1 Mark 3 RP’. Rumour has it that it had been designed for use on the Fairy Swordfish in 1936. Even if that was not true it was certainly used throughout WW2, and in particular by the anti-tank Typhoons in Normandy after D-Day. The Hunter carried four Mark 12 rocket rails under each wing (except when the outboard 100 gal tank pylons were fitted when one rail each side was replaced by a drop tank pylon). The RPs could be hung up to three tiers on each rail thus giving a maximum of 24 (or 18 with pylons fitted).

The main draw back of the 3” drain pipe was gravity drop, after about 200 yards the RP had lost its forward momentum and started to curve gracefully to earth. The three types of warhead available were:

1. 25 lb solid shot head (actually made of concrete). This was the round used on the air-ground range.

2. 60 lb HE/SAP (High Explosive/Semi Armour Piercing). This was the version we usually used on operations.

3. 60 lb HE/HC (High Explosive/Hollow charge). This head was designed for penetration of
 armoured targets. Fortunately for us the other side did not possess any!

The targets on the range were 15 ft square, canvas on a wooden frame. These were used for both Aden guns and the rockets and there were usually 4 or 6 of these targets erected at a time in a row some yards apart. The range party was under the control of a Senior NCO armourer with a couple of airmen and a team of local Arabs to do the work. Also present was a pilot from the squadron as the Range Safety Officer and to record the scores. On a firing day, a truck would pick up the pilot at the Officers’ Mess and proceed to the Airmen’s mess via the Sgts’. Mess. The Airmen’s Mess would provide rations for the day’s outing including the ‘wads’ (sandwiches) and great urns of tea. All of this involved a very early start as the range had to be ready for the first aircraft’s arrival at around 8 o’clock. The locals were picked up at a nearby village and were always the same Arabs. For them it was a desirable job. On arrival the labourers would set up the targets and the pilot, the Range Safety Officer would climb up into the wooden control tower to try out his radio.

The attacking aircraft arrived in pairs, spaced out so that there were only two on the range at a time. First the leader would dive on his attack and as he pulled up to go around for his next attack, the No. 2 would go into his dive. Each attack had to be cleared in by the RSO and a radio failure meant RTB (return to base). The attacks were made from 2-3,000 ft and the angle of dive was about 30 – 40° but it felt a lot steeper. For range work, the Aden gun pack was loaded with 60 rounds per gun, but wired off so that only one would fire on each sortie. Unlike the system we had used at home on the air-air flags, the shells were not marked. Instead, after each pair had completed firing and the range was safe, an NCO would run out to the target and poke a stick which had been dipped in coloured paint through each hole and then count the holes and record the scores. Thus if the target was relatively unscathed it could be used several times. This system saved reloading after each sortie and so four pilots could go to the range in turn before the gun pack had to be changed. If a pair had been particularly accurate the target would be lowered for patching or replacement of the canvas and a fresh target allocated to the next pair. As an indication I see from my log book that I often got between 30 and 45 hits out of 60 fired at the target. The rockets were a different matter and scores were either a DH (direct hit) which was very rare, or marked by the number of yards by which one missed. The marking was again by the range NCO who plotted each round and estimated the error by means of white concentric circles painted on the ground.

Due to the gravity drop mentioned above, average errors with the 3” drainpipe were around 10 – 20 yards. There is an amusing story about the range party which was told to me by one of the range NCOs. As with most aircraft, the brass cartridge cases were ejected once the round had been fired. The Arab range party were allowed to scavenge these cases as there was a considerable amount of brass involved which was very valuable to them. The cases would fall along the track of the aircraft in its dive and this is what happened with the single seat FGA.9s. However, for some reason the two-seat Mark 7 retained its cases and so the Arabs used to call the two-seater Mark 7 ‘the Jewish one’.

In the meantime Squadron life carried on with the most interesting flying I ever experienced. It was noticeable that the operational sorties were increasing and changing from patrols and Flag Waves to actual close support for the Army. Interspersed with this flying were detachments to Bahrain and Sharjah, the latter for yet more air to ground Aden cannon and 3” rocket firing. As Christmas 1963 approached the Squadron Commander, Sqn Ldr Phil Champniss took pity on me and sent me home to do the HSE (Hunter Simulator and Emergency) course at Chivenor.

Ferrying to the UK

After two to three years of operations in dusty Aden the Hunters would become very ‘tired’ not to mention sand blasted. As there were no facilities for major rebuilds in Aden, the aircraft had to be ferried home to a British Maintenance Unit to be refurbished and repainted. This was carried out at Kemble or St. Athan. For safety reasons two aircraft at a time were despatched and so when my turn came to carry out a ferry home I was very relieved to be allocated a Mark 10 of 1417 Flight. Despite the fact that the Mark 9s operated over 1,000s of miles of hostile terrain they were not equipped with any navigational aids, whereas the Mark 10 had a single ADF receiver, luxury indeed. I was tasked to ferry home Hunter 10 XE614 and my No. 2 was Flt Lt Al Liddle in 43 Squadron Hunter 9 XF421. 

Due to the political situation in the Middle East, Colonel Nasser was being very unfriendly and refused to allow the RAF to overfly Egypt which was the shortest route home. Instead we were faced with an eight-leg excursion by way of Masirah, Bahrain, Tehran, Akrotiri (Cyprus), El Adem (Libya), Malta, Nice and finally the Maintenance Unit. With two x 230 and two x 100 gallon drop tanks the Hunters range was a respectable 1,850 nms. But even so the leg Tehran to Cyprus was a bit touchy if the weather was bad. The trip normally took four days but I see from my logbook that we scrounged an extra two days at Akrotiri. 

The Ferry trips were usually combined with an HSE course at Chivenor thus allowing a little time to visit parents and other relations. Ideally there would have been two refurbished Hunters waiting to be returned to Aden but in our case this was not so and we returned courtesy of a Transport Command Britannia.

Hunter Simulator and Emergencies (HSE) course - RAF Chivenor

All Hunter Pilots had to do this refresher course once a year and so this time it worked very well and I was home for Christmas. The course itself was a week long at RAF Chivenor in Devon, and consisted of simulator rides with every conceivable emergency thrown at one, followed by real dinghy drill off the south coast. By today’s standards the Hunter simulator was pretty crude and of course there was no visual or motion. In fact it felt nothing like flying a Hunter at all but it was the best we had and at least you could practise engine fires! Unfortunately December was the wrong time of the year for real wet dinghy drill but I had to take the rough with the smooth. The deal was that we (there were about ten on the course) were taken out to sea about five miles offshore in an Air Sea Rescue launch and then had to leap overboard attached to a one-man dinghy by a lanyard. We were wearing only swimming costumes under a suit of Denims (a one piece coverall used by airmen when carrying out dirty tasks). The sea temperature was about zero and the denims gave no protection against the cold so there was a great incentive to get into the dinghy pretty smartly, put out the sea anchor, and erect the hood against the chilly wind. Having dropped us off one at a time about 300 yards apart the launch left us for a while to play with the various goodies on board, trying out the tins of boiled sweets and firing off the flares, before slowly coming around to pick us up again. At first we were very glad to be back on board but the combination of the swell of the sea, the hot engine room and a tot of rum was enough to give the fishes a good meal!

Back at Khormaksar, after Christmas, I found that I had been allocated a flat for occupation at the end of February.

Domestic life in Aden

Even though I was now a Flt Lt with two children I still had to wait six months for married accommodation. Due to the enormous service population of the Army, Navy and RAF, accommodation was pretty scarce. I was once told that there were over 10,000 service men/women and dependants living in Aden without counting the civilian school teachers and civil servants. For the Air Force, the quarters were of three types. At the top were the ‘real’ married quarters on base at Khormaksar and Steamer Point (The latter was the Headquarters unit and Hospital). These were very salubrious dwellings much the same scale as at home. They were detached houses laid out in nicely landscaped surroundings within the perimeter fence. Then there were the individual hirings which were flats owned by local Arabs, some on the Ma’alla Straight and some in Crater, and offered to the services to rent out. Finally there were the 5 story blocks of flats on Ma’alla Straight inhabited entirely by British Servicemen and civilians with their families. Ma’alla straight was the long dual carriageway connecting RAF Khormaksar to the Crescent and Steamer point. Years before I arrived some enterprising locals had the idea of building blocks of flats specifically to let to the British forces. Before these flats had been built, the older buildings (on the left when proceeding towards Steamer Point) must have had a good view of the port and inner harbour with the salt pans in the distance. Our blocks were built on disused land on the other side of the road and completely obscured the view. Although not identical the new flats were very similar in layout – five stories built on pillars so that there was ample parking space below. This not only kept the cars relatively cool but provided a playing area for the children. This was quite useful as at the front was the busy dual carriageway of Ma’alla Straight, and to the rear was a strip of land about 800 yards deep between the flats and the inner harbour. This land was an unusable sea of green glass due to the local's habit of drinking at night and smashing their empty Heineken beer bottles on the ground. Each floor contained 5 flats giving a total of 25 units. Each flat had two air conditioned bedrooms, lounge, dining room, kitchen and bathroom. They were quite comfortable little units given that we would only be there for about 18 months and we had the added bonus of being on the first floor and so only one flight of steps to climb! Our flat was number 2, Tulay Khan and I think that there were about ten blocks altogether on our side of the road. Each block was looked after by a Chowkidar who lived in a little room on the ground floor. His job was quite comprehensive – Supervisor/guard/maintenance-man and general dogsbody. Our chap was a very pleasant and obliging local named Mohamed and apart from the fact that he was on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week he had a pretty easy time of it. As far as I could tell, the services occupied separate blocks, probably for accounting reasons. Certainly all of Tulay Khan was occupied by the RAF and dependants. On the other side of Ma’alla Straight were some much older buildings of some four-five stories. Some had shops on the ground floor but the majority were hirings let out mostly to civilians working for the services, school teachers, works and bricks etc. There was relatively little hard surfaced road surface in Aden. What there was ran from the RAF base at Khormaksar down to The Crescent and Steamer Point and the docks, possibly two-three miles. A little further on was Tarshyne, which was the RAF Officer’s Beach and up the hill was the Hospital. Jebel Shamsan, rising to 1555 feet and only 4 miles from the runway at Khormaksar, was the dominant feature of Aden town, and was part of the rim of a huge extinct volcano. The Arab town of Crater was built inside the bowl of the volcano and had to be approached over a pass cut through the rim.

Before the troubles there were many Service and Civilian families occupying some very salubrious flats in Crater but when the situation deteriorated they all had to be pulled out. One of the sights in Crater were the Tawahi tanks, these were ancient water tanks intended to catch rain and had a capacity of 50 million litres. They were in immaculate condition with only one problem. There was never any water in them because it never rained! Little Aden, some 20 miles to the west was home to the BP refinery and not much visited by the service families. Aden itself was a paradox, despite the searing heat, the grass around the Married quarters and on the roundabouts and verges was lush and green. Not only was the water good to drink but there were no shortages and the grass was watered 24 hours a day. It was all down to the artesian wells at Sheik Othman which provided all of Aden town with clear, pure water. The poorer local Arabs generally had no running water and the camel carts touting water supplies were a familiar sight, much as milk floats were in the past at home. It was said at the time that the locals could live on a shilling a day. The men, for example generally had only one set of clothing – a pair of flip flops, a longhi (a patterned cotton skirt), a white T shirt and a little round cloth hat. Under the longhi was (I hope) a pair of Y fronts. The climate was such that all year round there was no need of shelter as it never rained. The poorest people used to scrounge empty wooden and cardboard boxes which had contained the larger type of kitchen appliances such as fridges and built a shanty town on the slopes of Shamsan. Even below this level it was common to see people sleeping on patches of waste ground on home-made beds, out in the open without covering of any sort. It just wasn’t necessary. During the afternoon and evening it was not unusual to see the men chewing green leaves of qat which was a mildly narcotic leaf and apparently semi-legal and tolerated by the police. The leaves are chewed in a bunch, the juice swallowed and the masticated leaves spat out. Although it normally caused few problems it was not very reassuring to see your taxi driver happily chewing away while driving at 50 miles per hour!

Just north of Khormaksar were the salt pans which were still being ‘harvested’ and were in addition providing a home for thousands of beautiful flamingos. Despite the proximity of the runways at Khormaksar I don’t think there were ever any incidents between them and the aircraft. Just a little further north was Sheik Othman town complete with a zoo (which was nowhere near as bad as we had expected). We used to take the children there for an outing occasionally and it was really quite pleasant as the water from the artesian wells made the area into a little oasis.

As a family we soon settled down to a domestic routine. We employed an ayah named Amanda, a Somali who was in Aden to earn money to send home to her family in Somaliland. Her main tasks were the housework and baby sitting, for the latter she was always volunteering as, particularly in the summer months she was able to sleep on a mattress in the children’s air conditioned bedroom. She lived in Crater and for the journey to and from on the bus she wore traditional dress to avoid the attentions of the local Lotharios, however when she was in the flat she preferred western dress. When we first employed Amanda the going rate was £12 per month but a little later the RAF decided to take over this payment and she was now entitled to £16, this of course suited both of us very well. The children both went to the service school in Steamer Point and were taken each way in an RAF bus. One of Amanda’s jobs was to see them onto the bus and then meet them again when they came home. As the terrorism started to escalate, in mid 64, the school busses had to have protective grills welded over the windows and all carried an armed guard. As with the RAF personnel on base, the school hours were only until 13.00 when they were free for the afternoon. It was not practicable to sit around in the flat, particularly in the summer and so it was a quick lunch and then down to Tarshyne for the afternoon. The RAF Officers section of the beach had a fine swimming pool, a restaurant, a beach snack bar and an open air cinema. The swimming season in the sea coincided with the passing of the ITCZ. As soon as it went through in May the seas got very rough with large waves and the shark net which protected the bay had to be taken down otherwise it would have been wrecked. Although it was possible to go in a few feet there was a very good chance of being knocked down by the huge waves and of course the ever present danger from sharks. In September the reverse happened and the conditions for sea bathing and swimming were ideal. We did not often use the pool, preferring to sit around on deck chairs drinking glasses of real lemon and lime and eating salad rolls from the snack bar. As previously mentioned it got dark every evening around 6.00 – 6.30 pm and occasionally we would stay on and see a film, one I remember was ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ with the Beatles who were just branching out into films. Soon after Margaret and the family came out we were treated to a most unusual spectacle.

We were driving in our little Fiat 600 along a road which bordered the inner harbour and as we rounded a bend there was an Argosy, for all the world like a flying boat, lying in the water not 50 yards from the shore. It turned out that it was a ‘feathering’ classic. The Argosy (XP413 from 105 Squadron) had been up on training mission for a newly arrived pilot and one of the exercises was a practise engine failure on the approach to land at Khormaksar. The instructor pilot had shut down the port inner expecting the trainee pilot to feather that engine. Unfortunately in his anxiety to cope with the emergency the co-pilot feathered the port outer. The Argosy does not fly well on two engines particularly if they happen to be on the same side! As there was not enough time to relight the port inner or un-feather the port outer the Captain had no alternative but to ditch the Argosy in about three feet of water.

On the flying side there were frequent detachments to Masirah Island, Sharjah for the Armament Practice Camp and Bahrain to impress Iraq. 

RAF Masirah

Masirah Island lies just off the north east corner of Oman and the RAF had maintained an airfield there since 1929. It was originally an un-manned staging post between Aden and Iraq but during the war assumed great importance as a base for anti submarine operations and also as a staging post for to the Far East. In the 50s and 60s it resumed its task as a re-fuelling point for us between Khormaksar and Bahrain. In addition aircraft from all three Hunter squadrons used to be based there for short periods to give a change of flying location. Apart from the RAF base, the island supported a few fishermen and there was absolutely nothing to see there except the turtles. Masirah is host to the largest nesting population of Loggerhead turtles in the world and is one of those mysterious places where, at certain times of the year, turtles come ashore to lay their eggs. Enlisting the aid of a resident officer and land rover we were taken to the beach to see this amazing sight. At about 10 o’clock at night the females start to come ashore in their thousands and scramble about 20 ft from the sea. Then, after digging a shallow hole with their flippers they would each lay about 100 eggs. Nothing seemed to deter them such was the biological urge to reproduce. Even idiots like us running around with torches made no difference. As soon as they had finished laying they retraced their route back to the sea and disappeared. Their impression in the sand was most distinctive, rather like the wheel marks made by a tractor. We did not have time to stay to watch the eggs hatch out as it takes 60 days but apparently only a tiny percentage make it back to the sea to become adult Turtles. By far the vast majority succumb to predators such as seabirds and small mammals.

Another magnificent sight off Masirah Island were the Manta rays. As we flew low over the clear blue sea we could see these 30 ft monsters gracefully ‘flying’ through sea with steady sweeps of their giant wings just like an enormous Skates.

RAF Sharjah

Sharjah is on the west coast of the United Arab Republic, just north of Dubai in what is now the United Arab Republic. When we were based there for the APCs we were accommodated in prefab type huts, with the beds all lined up along each wall. My abiding memory of Sharjah is of the millions of flies which infested the place which is all the more unusual as we rarely saw any insects at all back at Khormaksar except for the occasional cockroach. Every time someone went in or out of the hut those left behind would spend an hour swatting them with plastic fly swats.

I had one minor scare at Sharjah whilst returning from a live RP sortie on the Jeb a Jib range. I had been carrying eight RPs but one of them hung up and so I had to land with it still on the rail. I informed the tower and came in to land but despite a very gentle touch down the RP dropped off and skidded down the runway in close formation with me before sliding off onto the bondu. In fact there was little danger as it was a solid 25 lb concrete head but it could have caused damage if it had hit something.

RAF Muharraq - Bahrain

The kingdom of Bahrain is a small island, further up the Gulf between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Ruler has always been very friendly toward Great Britain and so it was whilst we were there at RAF Muharraq. Even in the 1960s there was the threat of Iraq invading Kuwait to get their oil and so a fighter ground attack force was positioned there to hopefully deal with Iraqi tanks. Initially No. 8 squadron handled this with 208 but in 1963 No. 43 Squadron was posted to Aden to beef up the defences. As explained elsewhere in this narrative, the three Hunter Squadrons rotated the Bahrain detachments; two months up and four months back at Aden. However this was most unpopular with all concerned and so in May 1964, 208 was sent permanently to Bahrain and 8 and 43 remained at Khormaksar. This did not however preclude short detachments to Bahrain which averaged two to three per year.

The weather in Bahrain is even more extreme than Aden. The temperatures in the summer are far higher but it is the humidity which is the real problem. As opposed to Aden which normally only had air conditioning in bedrooms, every room in the mess at Muharraq had air conditioning for which we were eternally grateful. On the flying side, in the summer, the humidity caused a thick mist to form every morning which did not burn off until after 9.00 am. This naturally curtailed the flying programme somewhat. When off duty we rarely went off base except occasionally to a beach for swimming. In those days, unlike in Aden, Bahrain had no restaurants catering for western tastes and so we did our socialising in the mess. As the pilots were all ‘living in’ (the Mess) during these detachments there was a tendency towards exuberant behaviour in the evenings and apart from the usual Mess games it was not unknown for full cans of beer to be thrown up into the revolving ceiling fans with predictable results. And then on one particularly heavy night, the Mess upright piano was taken out onto the beach and demolished with some plastic explosive borrowed from the SAS. The Station Commander was naturally most displeased and our C/O Phil Champniss had to fly down to Khormaksar to be reprimanded by the AOC. While he stuck up for us while he was in Aden, we suffered his full displeasure when he returned and we had not only to pay for a new piano but put on denims and clean up and re-decorate the bar into the bargain. For my personal bonus from this episode.

The ground crew

Prior to Centralised Servicing, the Squadron groundcrew numbered between 75 and 85 NCOs and airmen. In charge of all the technicians (tradesmen) was an Engineer Officer, usually a Flight Lieutenant or Flying Officer although on occasion this post could be filled by a Warrant Officer. The only NCOs and airmen not under the command of the Engineering Officer were a few administrators to deal with the paperwork who came directly under the Squadron Adjutant. Each trade was represented by a Senior NCO, who was nominally responsible for other SNCOs, Junior NCOs and Airmen in that trade. A Senior NCO in charge of a particular trade was generally known as ‘Chiefy’. The number of airmen on strength in a particular trade depended of the role of the squadron. The most numerous were generally ‘Airframe’ and ‘Engines’ as they not only had to carry out first line servicing and refuelling of the aircraft on turnrounds but also assist the ancillary trades with marshalling aircraft in and out. The ancillary trades comprised Electrics, Radio, Radar, Instrument mechanics, Armourers to service the cine guns and finally a few Photographers. 1417 Flight of course had far more photographers to deal with the three F95 cameras in the Hunter 10.

Up-country

Every so often it was felt by the folks on the Hill that a Hunter pilot should go up country with the army to see how the other half lived. When my turn came I was flown in a Beaver of the Army Air Corps to an army camp on a 6,500 ft high plateau in the Radfan, some 75 miles north east of Aden where there were some minor skirmishes with the dissidents. I felt very like John Wayne with my six shooter strapped to my waist (we did not usually carry side arms as the Air Ministry obviously thought that if we did, we would present more of a danger to our own side!) The idea was that we would work with the FACs (Forward Air Controllers) and advise them on the Hunter’s tactics and capabilities. Although Hunter pilots were not trained FACs I had a go several times and quite enjoyed being on the other side of the action. The only problem was that the army had a very rigid manner of speaking on the radio. Possibly because of their radio set’s poor performance whereas we were used to crystal clear UHF (Ultra High Frequency) radios. The RAF stopped using Wilco and Out many years ago although Roger (I have received and understand you) was still used as it saved transmission time.

As usual the army look after themselves very well and I was not surprised to find a fully kitted out Officers’ Mess, albeit under canvas. The only things to beware of, my batman warned me, were scorpions and camel spiders. In particular it was very important to check ones boots before putting them on in the morning. Camel spiders had bodies nearly as big as a tennis ball and the sting was reputed to be lethal. During my stint up country I had a couple of trips in the Beaver and noticed that the Army Air Corps pilots were generally NCOs, only the Flight and Squadron Commanders were Officers. After a most enjoyable and unusual week on the plateau my return to Khormaksar was in a 5 seater Scout helicopter which had been tasked to convey a captured dissident to the Army Headquarters in Aden for interrogation. Rather unwisely the take off was scheduled for mid day when the temperature was at it’s hottest and with the pilot, myself, two escorts and the prisoner the poor Scout was struggling to get airborne. Eventually the pilot unloaded us all and positioned the Scout on a gentle downward slope on the edge of the escarpment overlooking the sheer drop. We then clambered back on board and the pilot opened the throttle to maximum rpm and eased forward over the edge of the 6,500 ft drop. To me it was frightening enough but to the prisoner who had never even been close to an aeroplane before it must have been terrifying. I swear our reluctant passenger turned white!

Another trip up country in a Beverley of 84 Squadron was a visit to Beihan airstrip by a group of 43 Squadron pilots to assess whether there was any possibility of putting a section of Hunters there to confront the Egyptian Mig 15s. I made a report to the Squadron Commander which said that I was prepared to have a go but would prefer the runway to be lengthened by 300 yards.

The proposal was that we would take the drop tanks off and fly up to Beihan with a reduced fuel load which would help to cope with the short landing run. The idea was discussed up at the Hill but nothing came of it due to the almost certain FOD (Foreign Object Damage) to the underside of the wings and fuselage and even ingestion of rocks and stones by the engine with probably fatal results. But the real clincher was the realisation that a Mig could catch us on the ground and write off two Hunters not to mention the pilots!

Aircraft accidents

It must be remembered that our normal training had to proceed hand in hand with the operational requirements. New pilots had to be trained up to operational standards and the more senior had to keep their hand in. Thus it was that on the 17 April 1964, Fg Off Martin Herring was leading a practise 4 ship formation, up country on simulated rocket attacks. Together with Fg Off John Thompson and Flt Lt John Batty, he was being tutored by Flt Lt Glyn Chapman, flying in No. 4 position. It would appear from the eye-witness accounts of the other three pilots that as Martin was pulling out of the dive, one of the 230-gallon drop tanks came off and so the aircraft, XG136, became uncontrollable and crashed into the ground and Martin was killed instantly. Coincidentally this was the 2^nd of my personal Hunters, which I first flew on the 10 September 1963 and subsequently another seven times, the last flight being on the 13 April, just a few days before Martin went in.

There was only one other fatality on 43 during my time but this came much later in 1964, after the merging of 8 and 43 Squadrons. There was a short detachment to Masirah Island involving four aircraft of the Khormaksar strike wing. The pilots were from both Squadrons which was unusual in that we rarely ever flew together. At the end of the detachment, on 16 October, a four-ship formation led by an 8 Squadron pilot took off and once in battle formation commenced a climbing turn onto the track back to Khormaksar. The weather was fine but, as usual in the mornings, was very hazy. Unfortunately in the turn Fg Off Ian Stephens, who was flying XE592 in the No. 4 position, became disorientated and crashed into the sea and was killed.

There were only two other serious accidents which fortunately had happier outcomes.

On August the 11 1964, Fg Off Ron Burrows was No. 2 in a formation led by Flt Lt John Osborne. After take-off they turned to fly at low level up the coast to the north east in battle formation. At about ten miles from Khormaksar, Ron experienced an engine flame-out caused by a failed fuel pump. He immediately pulled up to 2,500ft and turned back towards the airfield. Several attempts at re-lighting were unsuccessful and he was obliged to eject when down to 800 ft. The aircraft, XE623, crashed in the station aerial farm and was remarkably intact for a pilot-less landing. Ron suffered the usual ‘Martin Baker’ back but made a quick recover and was back on flying after only three weeks.

The other accident was even closer to home. Flt Lt Glyn Chapman arrived in the circuit one day but found that one of his undercarriage legs refused to extend. He re-cycled the undercarriage several times to try to get the leg to lower but to no avail. The advice from the Duty Officer in the tower was to climb up and bale out over the airfield but Glyn declined and put the Hunter down gently on the remaining main wheel and nose wheel, holding the wing up on the affected side for as long as possible. Of course there was no foam available at Khormaksar which meant the possibility of fire when the wing finally met the runway. However, in this case all was well and at a very low speed Glyn eased the wing onto the ground and the Hunter did a pirouette before coming to rest. Fortunately I had my cine camera with me and I have a fine shot of the hood coming back and Glyn doing the 100 yard sprint in record time!

Operations

Although 8 Squadron Hunters (and previously Venoms) had carried the burden alone, the deteriorating situation up-country required more air power and in November 1961 No. 208 Squadron was moved down from its long detachment to Bahrain and then in March 63 No. 43 Squadron was posted in from Cyprus.

When I arrived in July 1963 the only operational sorties were Battle flights, Ranjis and Flag waves. Battle Flights were intended to be standing patrols over Beihan, a fertile area with a small airfield on a 7,000 ft. high plateau about 100 miles north east of Khormaksar. The small airfield at Beihan was used by the short-field transports like the Beverley and Twin Pin but was unfortunately too short for the Hunters. The threat at that time came from Egyptian flown Mig 15s and 17s which used to come across the border and bomb and napalm the army positions and local villages, which were friendly to the British. We soon found, as did the RAF in WW2, that standing patrols are incredibly inefficient and very expensive in flying hours and so these were soon discontinued. There was a radar station at Mukeiras and we still responded to incursions by scrambling a pair of Hunters from Khormaksar but by the time we reached the Beihan area the Migs were long gone. I did once spot a Mig 15 while on a training exercise but as I dived on him he scooted back across the border and safety. And in case you are wondering, we always flew training flights with the four Aden cannons fully loaded. With two squadrons of Hunters plus 1417 Flight screaming around all day at low level, the dissidents were very aware of our air power. However we could not carry out ops at night and this is where the last component of the Khormaksar strike wing came into its own. Most nights, one of the Shackletons of 37 Squadron (for obvious reasons we called them Shacklebombers) would be loaded with small bombs and cruise around the dissident’s area releasing one at irregular intervals. The idea of this was to make sleeping difficult thus reducing their effectiveness the following day. We had no idea if this scheme was in any way effective, but it may well have helped the army a little.

Ranjis were intended to prevent the dissidents smuggling arms and other supplies into the Aden protectorate by sea by patrolling the coast to the east and west of Aden. Intelligence thought that small coastal vessels or Dhows might be used and a lot of fuel was expended on these flights but I don’t think that much of value was ever discovered.

As the name suggests, Flag Waves were intended to impress the local inhabitants with the might and strike ability of the Royal Air Force. Acting on intelligence supplied by the Army, sections of two or four were despatched to known trouble spots to make a lot of noise and buzz the offending villages. This was all great fun and quite harmless as no live firing was involved. However by early 1964 the civil unrest up-country was starting to increase and activity in the Radfan, a mountainous area 60 miles north of Aden, began to intensify. In addition, the Quteibi, Ibdali and Bakri tribes who traditionally supplemented their income by looting travellers on the Dhala road which connected Aden to the state of Yemen also intensified their activities.

Thus the main Radfan based tribes, backed with Egyptian and Yemeni troops and weapons, mined the Dhala road and began regular ambushes. I missed the first Radfan offensive, code named ‘Nutcracker’ which started on 4 January 1964, as I was on the HSE course at RAF Chivenor. I believe this was the first time that the twin rotor Belvedere helicopters of 26 Squadron had been used to transport troops into action. Up to this time in Aden, choppers were generally used only for re-supplying formations already in position and casevacing out casualties. The units involved in ‘Nutcracker were the 2^nd, 3^rd and 4th Battalions of the Federal Regular Army supported by a troop of Centurion tanks from the 15/16^th Lancers and artillery from the 3rd Battalion Royal Horse Artillery. Assisting the Belvederes were four Wessex helicopters from 815 Squadron Royal Navy (from a carrier which was in Aden at the time). In addition to landing formations of the FRA into the battle area, the ridges above the Rabna pass, the Belvederes also airlifted in the 105 mm guns of the 3^rd RHA, apparently lowering them facing in the right direction to save the crews struggling to turn them in the confined space. Khormaksar based Hunters and Shackletons of course also carried out numerous sorties in support of the ‘Nutcracker’ operation.

As well as stroppy locals, the Army had two different outfits to contend with, FLOSY and the NLF. North Yemen, which was backed by Egypt, was fomenting unrest in the South mainly through FLOSY (Federation for the Liberation of South Yemen) and the NLF, (National Liberation Front). In those days the term used was ‘dissidents’, not terrorists. These two outfits initially hated each other and were fighting for supremacy between themselves as well as the British, but towards the end of my time in Aden they joined forces which helped accelerate our final withdrawal. In addition to the strikes called down by the Army in the field, we were starting to carry out patrols in well defined prescribed areas, where the Hunters were tasked to shoot anything that moved be it man or beast. The idea was to deny the dissidents access to their food supplies and generally make life miserable for them. Each of the prescribed areas was well leafleted by 1417 Flight to ensure that ‘honest’ locals would keep well clear. On one occasion I was leading a fairly new junior pilot, on his first operational flight, in the Wadi Bana area. The Wadi Bana was a large river running almost due south, from the Hadraumat in the north down to the sea It marked the eastern edge of one of the prescribed areas and was an extremely good landmark in almost all flying conditions. On this occasion we had some trade, a lone camel grazing on the river bank completely unaware of our presence. Before I continue with this story I must return to my teen years when I read a novel about a Spitfire squadron in Burma in 1944. One of the passages haunted me for years as it described the hero, in much the same situation as ourselves, firing at an elephant with his four 20 mm Hispano cannons, which virtually disintegrated the animal. The description was very graphic and when I saw the camel I knew I didn’t have the heart to do the same thing. I therefore told my No. 2 to go down and shoot the camel while I flew top cover overhead. This was all part of my cunning plan as I knew this particular chap was a lousy shot. Sure enough on his first pass he missed by a mile but the camel quickly became aware of the Aden cannon’s high explosive shells. Galvanised into action he leapt into the Wadi Bana and made like a speedboat for the far shore. After pulling up from the first attack my No. 2 circled around and I sent him down for another go. The second attack was no more successful than the first and I saw splashes all around but none of them hitting the speeding camel. As this was happening, I saw to my relief that the camel had reached the centre line of the river, still going like a train, and was therefore out of the prescribed area. This gave me a valid reason for calling off further attacks and so although I didn’t do my exact duty that day at least my conscience was clear.

In March 1964 the Radfan campaign started in earnest and we commenced live air-ground strikes with our four Adens and our ‘3 inch drainpipes’. The targets were mainly forts or sangars (small circular fortifications made of piled up rocks) where the dissidents were known to be hiding or storing weapons and ammunition, fortunately in those days the intelligence supplied to us was very good. The most interesting sorties however were the ‘Lulus’. These were requests from the FACs (Forward Air Controllers) on the ground with the army units. If they were in trouble they requested Air Support and we would scramble a pair or four Hunters at very short notice to give very close support with cannons and rockets.

On 13 March 1964, Yemeni armed helicopters and Mig 17s made an incursion across the border and attacked the village of Bulaq and a frontier guard post with bombs and machine guns. This was a serious escalation to the already tense situation and demanded some action in reply. The Hill (RAF Head quarters) signalled London and asked for permission to retaliate and on 28 March a strike was carried out on the fort at Harib, a few miles into Yemeni territory near Beihan. This was a combined effort by 8, 43 and 1417 Flight with the two FGA.9 Squadrons led by Wg Cdr John Jennings, OC strike wing. As usual 1417 carried out the pre-strike and post-strike photo shoots. The stone fort at Harib was almost completely destroyed by cannon and RP fire and was judged successful as the enemy attacks in that region suddenly ceased. Unfortunately I missed this op as I was engaged in ferrying a FGA.9, XF456 back from Nairobi to Aden at the time.

However, just after I returned to Khormaksar I was involved in a most exciting and strenuous operation. About 30 miles north of Aden, in the Wadi Taym, an army patrol involved in ‘Operation Cap Badge’ had been surrounded and pinned down by an overwhelming force of dissidents. The patrol was situated in a valley which would have been no problem to us except that it was a very rare day in Aden where there was complete cloud cover sitting right on the top of the surrounding hills. Fortunately the patrol had an FAC (Forward Air Controller) with radio and so he was able to describe accurately the layout of the situation and position of the patrol and call for a Lulu. On arriving overhead it looked very much as though there was no way of getting down below cloud because of the cloud cover. However on closer examination there appeared to be a ‘saddle’ in the mountain ridge and so I told No. 2 to orbit while went through into the valley. As I got through into the valley the patrol fired off smoke and it became apparent that there was not enough time or distance to push the aircraft forward into a dive before having to pull up back into the cloud again. Unfortunately the valley was too small to allow a Hunter to circle under the cloud base in order to attack. As I circled round above cloud and found the saddle again I decided on a desperate measure. I approached the saddle at a fairly low speed and just before reaching it rolled inverted and went through the gap upside down. This enabled me to pull hard and stay with the contour of the mountain until almost to the bottom where I rolled over and fired at the attacking dissidents. (Note that in a fighter it is always easier to change attitude by pulling back on the stick than pushing forward in a bunt). I tried it another couple of times and then briefed my No. 2 to have a go. We carried out several attacks until our ammunition was exhausted by which time another pair which had been scrambled from Khormaksar arrived on the scene. My pair returned to the airfield to re-arm, it was so close that we did not need to refuel, and then returned to have another go. All in all we spent the best part of a morning laying down fire, sometimes as close as 25 yards to our troops and were very pleased when an army rescue force arrived.

Another notable operation was in the case of an A Squadron 22 SAS patrol which was surrounded on 30 April 1964 and where the troop commander and the radio operator unfortunately lost their lives. On that occasion Nos. 8 and 43 Squadrons provided dawn to dusk cover, firing thousands of rounds of 30 mm Aden cannon shells and rockets but of course we could not continue at night and this is when the patrol was overtaken and surrounded.

It is recorded that during May and June 1964 the two ground attack squadrons, together with 1417 Flight flew 642 operational sorties and fired 2,508 rockets and 183,900 rounds of 30 mm Aden cannon ammunition.

Centralised servicing

Just as the Radfan operation came into full swing in June 1964, someone in the upper echelons at Khormaksar came up with the brilliant idea of Centralised Servicing. This was probably meant to facilitate the servicing effort of Tech Wing and provide more aircraft hours for the operational requirements by merging 8 and 43 Squadron aircraft into the Khormaksar Strike Wing. In fact this did not involve 1417 Flight (although the Flight’s ground crews were initially involved) or the Shackletons of 37 Squadron so it was a bit of a misnomer to start with. No. 208 Squadron had moved to Bahrain permanently thus obviating the ‘two months up – four months back’ saga but the pooling of aircraft with No. 8 and losing virtually all of the NCOs and Airmen to Tech Wing was extremely bad for the morale of both pilots and ground crew. As one of the Hunter Squadron Commanders, with classical understatement, wrote in the June 540 – ‘The results are most discouraging’. The other Squadron Commander was even more scathing – ‘The new servicing system has yet to provide adequate aircraft for even one day’s flying’. In essence it did not affect our flying effort as the two Squadrons continued to operate independently but the greatest effect was the pooling of the Hunters which meant having both 8 and 43 markings painted either side of the fuselage roundel. Thus we also lost our distinctive Fighting Cocks on the side of the nose.

From 15 June the Hunter Wing began providing cover for the whole day instead of just flying during the morning hours and so the rota was as follows:

And so on ad infinitum.

Terrorism

By mid 1964 the dissidents began to realise that taking on the British Army in conventional warfare was not a good idea and on 18 November 1964 the last remaining dissident tribe sued for peace. Although there was still plenty of flying on operations up-country, the emphasis by the NLF and FLOSY gradually changed to what we now call terrorism and the enemy shifted to attacks on service personnel and families living in Aden. It took the form of lobbing hand grenades into our flats and married quarters and even a bazooka fired from a car on Ma’alla Straight most evenings. I went out and scrounged some wood and wire netting to put over our windows as we were on the first floor but whether it would have been very effective I fortunately never found out. In November 1964 the Oasis bar on Ma’alla Straight was attacked, probably with a grenade, and two servicemen killed and one injured. However one of the worst incidents was on Christmas Eve 1964 when a terrorist threw a grenade into a married quarter on base at Khormaksar and killed the daughter of the Principal Medical Officer of the Middle East Command and also injured several teenage children of Senior Officers, at a party. The terrorists even targeted very young children, school satchels and other toys were washed up on Tarshyne beach and were found to be booby-trapped. One incident which raised our morale a little involved the Officers’ Mess at Tarshyne and one of the servants who had worked there for years. Apparently he had been persuaded by one of the terrorist groups to set a bomb in the Officers’ Mess timed to explode at breakfast time when the mess would be crowded. The device was fairly crude and involved some sticks of dynamite and a wind-up alarm clock. Unfortunately (for him), in the early hours of the morning, he tried to set the time for the explosion but wound the hands round too far and only succeeded exploding himself. Although the Mess was extensively damaged there were no RAF casualties. 

On Khormaksar airfield the RAF aircraft dispersals were always well guarded but the civilians were not so fortunate and on 29 of May 1965 a Dakota (KJ955) of the Middle East Communications Squadron was blown up and destroyed.

By June the Lulus were decreasing and the main effort was on Flagwaves and Air Defence scrambles again. One interesting Flagwave was a Hi-Lo-Hi to Shibam about 280 miles north east of Khormaksar. This was an Arab town that had probably never seen a motor vehicle but was composed of dozens of sky scrapers, some of them ten stories high, built entirely of mud bricks. At that distance it was getting near the limit for a low level sortie and we unfortunately did not have much time to look around. However 1417 had been there previously and I made a point of scrounging one of their 9 x 9 photographs of the mud sky scrapers.

August produced only two op sorties for me. On 2 I flew a flagwave over Muffid and Kharabah villages in XF445 and on 18 August a most unusual exercise. No. 43 had been tasked with carrying a funeral flypast near the town of Nisab for a friendly Sheik who had just peacefully passed away. A formation of two Hunters was requested and so I went with the C/O Sqn Ldr Phil Champniss. Due to the distance we had to fly a Hi-Lo-Hi and on arrival carried out a few low runs over the cortege in close formation and at a respectable low speed, just the opposite to a normal Flagwave.

One of my last flights in Aden was on 24 August 1965, in my own aircraft (at that time R Romeo - XE649) when I flew up country in company with Flt Lt George Cole in his 1417 Flight Mk.10. He took many photographs but my favourite is a close up of XE649 over the incredibly terraced fields where the local farmers eked a precarious living from the barren soil.

The amazing mud and stone-built sky scrapers of Shibam in the Eastern Protectorate as seen from a 1417 Flt FR.10 nose camera (Roger Wilkins)	Roger Wilkins flying his 'own' FGA.9 over the Aden hinterland in company with a 1417 Flt FR.10 on 24 August, 1965 (Roger Wilkins) Roger's name was painted on the cockpit side bellow the canopy.	Taking a last look round before his return to the UK, Roger Wilkins at the controls of 8/43 Sqn FGA.9, XE649-R on 24 August, 1965 (Roger Wilkins) Of note are the dual squadron markings either side of the roundel.	Backbone of the Aden Strike Wing, an 8/43 Sqn FGA.9, XE649-R heads 1417 Flt FR.10, XE599-GC over the mountains on 24-08-65 (Roger Wilkins)	Another view 8/43 Sqn FGA.9, XE649-R as seen from a 1417 Flight FR.10, F.95 nose camera on 24 August, 1965 (Roger Wilkins)
A high level view of a 43 Sqn twelve-ship formation taken from a 1417 Flt FR.10 over the sea to the east of Khormaksar in 1965 (Roger Wilkins) Being an official photograph, the annotation at the bottom contains the name of the originating unit (1417 Flt in this instance), the date, pilot's name and classification.

 

Due to the normal changeover of pilots, I was now the longest serving member of 43 Squadron and this was the line-up in August 1965 just before I returned to the UK.

OC Sqn Ldr Phil Champniss
	A flight	B flight
	Flt Lt Pete Biddiscombe	Flt Lt Geoff Taylor
	Flt Lt Roger Wilkins	Flt Lt John Osborne
	Flt Lt Alan Pollock	Flt Lt Bill Stoker
	Flt Lt John Thomson	Flt Lt Al Liddle
	Fg Off Andy White	Flt Lt John Batty
	Fg Off Mike Fernee	Flt Lt Neil Hayward
	Fg Off Tony McKeon	Fg Off Pete Skinner
	Fg Off Nigel Ashley	Fg Off Cliff Middleton
	Fg Off Bob Screen	Fg Off Ron Burrows
	Fg Off Rod Dean

On 26 August I carried out my last flight, a low level Navex in XJ689 and so after just a little more than two years, my 43 Squadron tour was over.

My time on 43 Squadron in Aden provided the best flying I had ever experienced during my RAF service. The rugged terrain, the fantastic scenery over which we flew and above all the chance to really do what we, as ground attack fighter pilots, were trained for – the chance to carry out real operational live firing sorties. In addition, shortly after I returned to the UK I received the General Service Medal with the purple and green ribbon and Radfan clasp, to add to my solitary Coronation Medal.

Return to the UK

Very little could be taken home on the Transport Command aircraft and so all belongings had to be packed in wooden crates (scrounged from Tech Wing). These would be sent home by sea and we would not see them for several months. The journey home was scheduled a few days later and this time the family travelled together. The VC10s, which were just being introduced, halved the journey time to about 6 hours but we drew the short straw and got a Britannia, which by this time was getting a little long in the tooth. Our take off was at 10.00 pm and as we rolled down the runway I said to Margaret ‘he is not going fast enough, we won’t get off at this speed’. Sure enough the reverse thrust came on with a howl and we began to decelerate. Fortunately Khormaksar has a very long runway and we stopped before the end. The Brit then taxied back to the terminal building and we were off-loaded. As with airlines today, we were never told the reason for this incident but after a few hours in the transit building we trooped back on board and this time successfully got airborne. The journey home to Lyneham was a lengthy twelve hours but as we had all been up for nearly 24 hours it was not difficult to sleep on board the aircraft.

When the family and I left in August 1965, the military situation in the field was well under control but the terrorism was beginning to affect the families and civilians. It would have been possible to evacuate all of the families and civilians and the British services were well able to contain the dissidents, but the British government of the day made a political decision to quit Aden and the final pull out was completed on 30 November 1967.”