The End of Colonisation

“ I was born and brought up in the Harton area of South Shields and educated at Cleadon Park Secondary School.  I enlisted in the RAF at the beginning of 1965 at the age of 17. I completed my basic military training and also trained as a fireman.  Within a year I received notification of being posted to Aden and arrived at RAF Khormaksar (now Aden International Airport) on 12 October 1966. I was part of the fire crew covering aircraft fire and crash rescue.    

At this time Aden was part of the Federation of South Arabia. Since the end of 1963 a state of emergency had been in place.Anti-British and anti-colonial feelings were growing. There was anti-British guerrilla groups emerging ”National Liberation Front”(NLF) and the ”Front for the Liberation of South Yemen”(FLOSY).These two groups attacked each other as well as the British.  

Life on the Base was okay and the facilities were good, on our free days we sometimes went to another British Base at Tawahi which had a beach with facilities. The amount of places we could go to off base was very limited for security reasons.  At the beginning of 1967 the violence escalated with street riots throughout Aden and fighting between NLF, FLOSY and British forces. I think at this time the British Government had already decided to leave Aden without political agreement and because of the increased violence decided to speed up the evacuation of families. 

In mid-April 1967 I was sent to a forward operational airstrip in the Radfan Mountains at a place called Al-Habilayn next to the town of Thumier. I was part of an aircraft crash rescue crew.  

As part of the withdrawal plans we were due to leave here on the 20 June 1967 a date that I will remember for ever.  We were sat there with the aircraft on the ground and unable to leave because the Airport at Khormaksar was under fire.

This was at the end of the 6 Day War 1967 and it was claimed that the British had helped Israel and this lead to a mutiny by soldiers of the South Arabian Army and spread to the police. This resulted in murder, arson, looting and gun battles between FLOSY, NLF and British troops throughout Aden. We dont know how many Adeni casualties there was, but the British Army had 22 killed.  

Like most service people I enjoyed my time in South Arabia and was looking forward to going home and leaving a stable independent country behind. Sadly, the people who took over did not seem to care for the needs of the people and we can only hope that things get better for them. 

 The British departed by 30 November 1967 leaving the NLF in control and Aden became the capital of the new peoples Republic of South Yemen. “