“The Last
The
MONKS-FIELD was a tented outpost on a flat plain near WADI TAYM on the
Yemeni / Aden Protectorate border. Wadi Taym provided one of the main mountain
passes through from
The camp called Monk's field was, for the next month, home for the
headquarters element of A Company, 1st Bn
the Royal Sussex Regiment together with 2 platoon and
all of the extra Coy HQ attachments. The
other platoons were deployed in outposts on the high ground overlooking the wadi and the big fertile plain, both outposts were about 3
kilometres, as the crow flies, away from Company HQ .The nearest in time
was called PICCADILLY which was home for 3 platoon, and was approx 2 to 3 hours
march away, such was the terrain. The other outpost, which was only
normally accessible by Helicopter, was called HOTEL 10. It housed 1 platoon,
and was located on top of a very steep mountain, called by us CAPBADGE (it had
been flushed of all Adoo (dissidents) in an
operation commanded by Sir Peter De La Billiere some
4 years earlier) it would take the best part of the day to
climb. Each of the three locations
looked a little bit like Rourkes Drift consisting
of an oblong shape of sandbags varying in height from 4 foot 6 inches to
almost 6 feet, depending what was behind the wall. It was bigger than a basket
ball pitch but smaller than a football pitch. The occupying troops were housed
in 160 pounder tents with small, less than 2 feet, sand bag blast walls. The deep trench latrines
were situated outside the perimeter.
It was thought that the isolated location of the latrines possibly
helped to keep cases of constipation to a minimum what with us being on 100%
compo rations. You could only “go” in daylight hours! The site was out of
bounds once stand-to at night had started.
Throughout we were supplied by a Twin-Pioneer aircraft which always 'only
just made it', landing on our very short strip and then, depending on the wind
direction, watching it scrape over the ridge of either Pepsi-cola or Coca-cola,
the two tallest mountains. The
The daily
routine, as always, started with that old tradition of standing-to, for those
all important 30 to 45 minutes. Many of
us did not enjoy this ritual. During the
day the whole area was intensely patrolled. On the way, instant ranges were set
up to practice section or platoon attacks on (I wonder if there is anywhere
now, where a section commander could plan and execute a live-firing section
attack, simply because he wants to?)
During the morning it was mainly recce patrols,
identifying likely ambush sites for us to use the coming night. The afternoon
period was often spent rehearsing the nights patrol activity which could be a
simple recce patrol or a fighting patrol, by far the
most common operation we undertook, was the most complicated operation to
control at night — the ambush patrol. For these, it was necessary to close all
entrances to your clothing with masking tape, or the mosquitoes in the wadi would eat you alive (they were already immune to our
repellent )Working concurrently with the days activity, was what would seem to
the outsider as random harassing fire, here there and everywhere, from
both 105s and 81mm mortars. In fact
masked in amongst all those random fire missions were, what was then called DF`s. There would be approx 5 x DF`s
per patrol to register.Not forgetting the all
important DF-SOS for each patrol which were actually registered by both the patrol
commander and the 2 i/c, so come the night of need,
those rounds fell where we wanted them.
We also engaged in long range patrols of 3
days and 2 nights, these if I am honest, are the ones that worried me the most.
You were
totally relying on someone else's navigation skills. With some I was totally at
ease, then there were others! Still it was a great
opportunity for the medics to lob out a few codeine in
a vain attempt to get a few hearts and minds, till Adoo
came in at night.
Our main threat, apart from the odd contact
was Land-Mines, or booby traps set in loose sand on tracks or at the side of
tracks, and a lot of daylight patrols were tasked to locate and destroy these,
and our night time activity was spent preventing freedom of movement to the Adoo.
The 'stand-to' at sunset was something most
looked forward to by all, because it always contained an event that Maj. McNish called the holocaust. The aim of the holocaust was to demonstrate
to the Adoo the sort of fire power we could call
upon, to use against him. It involved
every cook, bottle washer, batman in fact every man on
the post to fire his weapon as fast as he could for a timed period of two
minutes, this was co-ordinated with the two platoon outposts. It didn't really matter what your weapon was,
be it a 9 mm pistol, a Bren gun, a 81 mm mortar, a
120 bat or a 105mm pack, your aim was to put as many rounds or bombs out the
other end as possible within the two minute session. On alternative nights we could call in Avro Vulcan for high-level bombing or Meteor for ground
attack. When the Royal Navy was in the
At night the area was subject to a strict
curfew and heavy patrolling by us, to deny the enemy freedom of movement.
Anything that moved outside the patrolling programme was simply shot at on
sight. I do not remember any Adoo being hit using this method but I do remember that at
night the wild life e.g. the packs of wild baboons, getting hit.Fired
on by jumpy sentries, in particular at the early part of the up-country tour.
The dissidents who formed our enemy were
mainly from
We were targeted by enemy mortar and artillery
fire. They had one old SU 100 artillery piece dug-in on the border. This was very often frightening, but never
accurate enough to cause us casualties. The SU100 was out of range and their
trusty old British 3 inch barrels were inaccurately laid.
The Para Gunners would sometimes fire in the
dead of night to shut the Adoo up. Sad for us to admit, to engage across the
border was not considered a way of getting on the accelerated promotion
ladder!
On the first night of A Coy`s
tour up-country, 3 Platoon. on PICCADILLY was hit hard, at last
light. The enemy position was on the other side of a Wadi entrance, opposite
PICCADILLY, it was also a feature a lot higher than ours. The enemy hit 3 platoon from above, mainly
with Brens and RPG fire. The fire control of individual soldiers was a problem
right from the start, both Section commanders and their section 2 i/cs needed
to work hard to get on top of the problem and control the fire fight. The fire fight was finally won when Nobby
Clark crawled about 200 meters, under fire, to his Mobat. He then loaded a
120mm HESH and fired into the centre of the enemy position! A short time later, 105 mm support was called
down. During the follow up operation, the enemy's abandoned weapons were found
intact at their firing positions, giving an indication as to how ‘hot’ it must
have been there!
To this day nobody is sure if Nobby
was aware of the danger he had placed himself in during that incident. During a later reconstruction of laying the
gun on to the target, it was found that the high elevation caused the venturi to deflect a large portion of the backblast into the firing pit !
His God appeared to smile on him that day, apart from being deaf for a day or
so and possessing a slightly deeper sun tan on just one side of his face he
seemed to come out of it unscathed.
I arrived at PICCADILLY at first light with Johnny 'the gun'
Blanchette as part of the OCs
R group together with a medic patrol. I
remember wading through a layer of empty cases about a foot deep, consisting of
all calibre's.
This brass carpet, lay behind a "You've built it
much too low! 'sandbagged wall, only
four bags high. We counted over 200 hits in the tents, shower, compo, cookhouse
tables, etc. The RPG 7 rockets had fallen short!
Baptism of fire on the very first
night........as if by a miracle…… (the Yemeni Bren-gunners were very good)! .......there were no
casualties.
Lt Jock Smith was awarded the MC for a
successful ambush out of Piccadilly. It was to be the last battle of the Royal
Sussex Regiment. We became a Battalion of the Queens Regiment only a year
later. After 265 years of fighting history, it had come to an end.
---------------------------------------
Names that I remember:
OC A Coy
– Maj. McNish
CSM A Coy – Charlie Tierney
Pl Sgt
– Terry Kerr
OC 3 Pl
-- Lt. Joseph “Jock “ Smith
Sec Comd --
Cpl. Johnny Grainger
Sec 2 i/c --
L/Cpl Chris Holcombe
Pte Leslie Deacon
Pte John Blanchette
Pte
Trevor Watson
Pte
Brian Stacey
Cpl Nobby Turner
L/Cpl Jenkinson
Pte
Joe Armeni
Pte
Alistair Love
Cpl
Trevor Cheeseman,
Pte
Ned Sheriff
L/Cpl Bob Chinn
Cpl
Eddie Lawrence
Pte
Terry Sullivan
Pte Allen
Drew
Cpl
Malcolm Milham
Cpl
Willy Wilmott
…………….there were many more, but my memory
fails me today.
Written
by ex 23868882 Sgt Leslie ”the bat”Deacon - 1st
Bn the Royal Sussex Regt./3rd Queens Regt.
1961-73
Edited by John Blanchette.