Aden 1967

[9001 St Paddy]

Back in the summer of 1967 a name that was mentioned quite a bit on the televison evening news back then that caught my attention was 'Mad Mitch' who's real name was Colin Campbell a Lieut-Colonel in the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders regiment who were out in Aden at the time and which is now in Yemen.

The name 'Mad Mitch' has remained with me in my mind for nearly 50 years so recently i've been watching a BBC dvd called Empire Warriors from 2004 and part of this dvd deals with the Aden insurgency of 1966-67 and the exploits of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders under the command of 'Mad Mitch' and how they surpressed a popular uprising by the local arabs wanting self rule after the deaths of 22 british soldier's who were killed on one day by local armed insurgent's and a number of rebel arab policemen in Crater city in June 1967.

It's an interesting dvd i've enjoyed watching it several times over so i was wondering if some of the more older member's on here remember Aden of 1967 along with 'Mad Mitch' & the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders.

[52D]

Remember it well plus in 2001 I was flown down to Sanaa then on to a place called Saiyoun in Wadi Hadramout to commission a power station. When I mention I have been in Yemen everyone automatically assumes Aden or Sanaa but the country is massive. Wadi Hadamout has water all the year round so when you fly in over the mountains it strikes you how green it is after the dirty brown of the hills.

[9001 St Paddy]

Yemen looks a big place on the map plus there's trouble from that part of the world again also the Aden insurgency of 1966-67 was a forerunner to Northern Ireland which by 1966-67 was having it's own civil rights marches with the catholics.

Lt-Colonel 'Mad Mitch' of the 1st Bn Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and his role in Aden in the summer 1967 is virtually a 'forgotten figure' in recent british history probably because in these PC times he'd be to much of an embarrassment no doubt??.

[manna]

G'day Gents

I think Mad Mitch was a bit of embarrassment even back then, even though his tactics work rather well.....and weren't the A & S highlanders disbanded soon afterwards.

I did have a day in Aden, back in 1964, I can remember it being Very Hot, I think I took my jumper off ?? and the locals were wearing stripped nighties ?? in the middle of the day !!

manna

[9001 St Paddy]

G'day Gents

I think Mad Mitch was a bit of embarrassment even back then, even though his tactics work rather well.....and weren't the A & S highlanders disbanded soon afterwards.

Yeah your right there manna he was an embarrassment to the military top brass and Whitehall at that time although apparently very popular amongst the british public in general back in 1967/68.

The Argyll's were disbanded many years after Aden and were eventually absorbed into the current Royal Regiment of Scotland.

'Mad Mitch' died in 1996.

[Cullercoats]

I had the dubious privilege of doing a one year tour in Aden in 1965, I worked at RAF Steamer Point Comcen repairing communications equipment.
I remember doing guard duty with a .303 Lee Enfield which was taller and heavier than I was at the time, the Air force was keen on filling your time up when not doing techie things
It was not a nice place then and seems quite unbelievably to have become even worse.
GW

[9001 St Paddy]

I was watching some of the ITN b&w newsreel film footage shot on the streets of Crater City back in 1967 and it shows the men of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 'cracking heads' with some of the arab locals and i must admit by todays standards it does look quite shocking (especially on first watching it it does and even watching it a second time as well) in one particular scene a squadie from the Northumberland Fusiliers gives a arab a 'hard crack' over the back of the head with the rifle barrel of his SLR and you hear it (i bet that rifle needed re-zeroing?) but to be honest i suppose the squadie's on the ground couldn't handel those arab's with kid gloves any other way besides shortly after those same arab's killed 22 british soldier's on one day!!.

A Lee Enfield rifle Cullercoats?. It appeared that most of the arab insurgent's had gotten hold of a load of Lee Enfield rifles although many of them appeared not to be 'zero'd in' for there own personal use so they missed there intended target as well as plenty of granades which they appeared to favour using?. All the squadie's of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in 1967 had the 7.62mm SLR (Self-Loading Rife) a great rifle and still a great rifle although it was fazed out by the british army during the late 1980s and superseded by the current british army issued 'pop gun' that being the 5.56mm SA80 Assult Rifle.

[Cullercoats]

Yes Finsbury Park the RAF held onto the Lee Enfield and the .303 Bren for some years after the Pongos had the SLR issued. A crack on the head I suggest was simply an invitation to move along and was meant as advice and guidance to refrain form throwing grenades into married quarters.
A point about the "pop gun" you mention - it would be preferable to be hit, if a preference is allowed, by the 5.56mm round from the SA80 than the 7.62mm from the SLR. The damage done by the far higher velocity bullet causes 36% more soft tissue damage to the recipient, and at 12% bone fragmentation is also far higher.
The SA80 weapon was a disaster in its original form, badly designed with too many tiny parts when stripped and prone to jamming and misfires in the field.
Sadly for a British weapon it had to be significantly modified by Heckler Kock.

[9001 St Paddy]

Yeah thats the way of the good old british squadie to crack someone over the head with his rifle or a dig in the guts with the rifle butt to 'invite someone to move along' although when you see it captured on film in the raw it does look mildly shocking to see although being in Crater City Aden was a dangerous place to be in for any british squadie between 1964-1967.

We still had a few Brens in our battalion in the mid/late 1970s but the main platoon weapon was the GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun) usually referred to as either 'the gun' or a 'Jimpy' by most squadie's that thing could lay some real fire-power down!!.

The 5.56mm SA80 Assult Rifle?. I don't really know much about it to be honest the british army were just about starting early 'field trails' with it at about the time i got out the army in 1979, i do vaguely remember there being some talk at that time about a 'new rifle' was going to be introduced into the army at some point in the future to replace the 7.62mm SLR but thats all, from pictures i've seen of the SA80 i don't like the look of it plus as you say i believe there was a number of serious problems with it before and after it was introduced into the british army in the late 1980s that had to be rectified but when it comes to rifles i like a rifle to look like a rifle and for me the 7.62mm SLR was a great rifle, reliable and nice to fire, easy to strip down to clean & maintain a absolute joy to have as your very 'best friend' in a nasty world.

[Cullercoats]

SLR with a matchstick under the trigger sear would fire full auto until the barrel quickly burnt out, great rifle!

[9001 St Paddy]

Yeah a few of the 'old soldiers' had done it. Take a SLR and 'break it' and then slide the top cover off the rifle and then slide the breach block out of the rifle and get the firing pin out of the breach block and stuff some silver paper in where the firing pin sits in the breach block then put the firing pin back in breach block and slide the breach block back into the rifle and replace the top cover on the rifle and snap the rifle shut and then fire off a full mag of 20 rounds on automatic fire!!.

It goes without saying that the british army didn't like there SLRs treated in that fashion not that it was very common for anyone to fire a SLR on automatic i don't believe i ever saw it done at all although i remember hearing a few 'old soldiers tales' of it happening occasionally during the nightly gun battles that took place in Belfast & Londonderry in Northern Ireland back in the early 1970s.