Casevac Radfan
We never knew what we might get when we requested casevac or air support. You will know how the air support was coordinated but as far as I remember we could get Hunters from either 208 or 43 Squadrons from Khormaksar, Buccaneers
from HMS Eagle, and helicopters from Khormaksar or HMS Bulwark? Anyway on this occasion we had a Wessex from the Fleet Air Arm.
Water Resupply
Once you got off the Dhala Road there were
few places that you could take a vehicle. The local population did not have vehicles (as the nearest petrol was in Aden) and so the only means of transport for both the locals and the FRA was donkey or camel using narrow tracks that connected wadis and villages. Water was also a major problem and I will not bore you with the difficulties we faced - suffice to say we used camels to carry jerrycans to our forward positions and we used it only for drinking!!
Tribal Gathering
When you looked across
the Radfan area from the Thumeir base it was almost impossible to appreciate that to the East of the Dhala Road there were numerous small wadis and waterholes that supported quite a large population who grew crops and grazed cattle. It was within this community that the anti-British movement was able to recruit followers and mount operations against government forces. Soon after we arrived we attempted to impose our authority by getting the local tribal leaders to attend a gathering at which their representatives from Al Ittihad tried to outline the consequences of covertly supporting the dissidents. This was followed by a firepower demonstration which obviously had no lasting effect on those attending!!
Radfan Operation Page 1 2 3
