Essay: A Mention in Despatches
Dec. 4th, 2009 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerFor today's essay*, we return to Dhofar. We're not traveling far, maybe 30 miles, but we're jumping ahead two years. Instead of a sultan's palace in a leafy coastal city, we find ourselves in a dry, dusty,mud-brick fort, worthy of Beau Geste. And instead of the short, Strackenzian combat of a near-bloodless coup d'etat, our objective is the middle of a blistering, deadly firefight.
Since the coup, the Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF) had begun a serious counterinsurgency campaign. They had begun setting up bases in the jebel (the mountainous plateau where most Dhofari lived and roamed with their cattle after the khareef--monsoon rains--ended and the land became lush and ripe for grazing). These bases allowed them to patrol further than they could if they came up from the coastal plain by day and returned to it at night. The patrols allowed them to interdict the movement of rebel forces and supplies, but most importantly they allowed them to create secure areas for civilians, to create a sense among the locals that they were safe from the adoo (literally "enemy", the common nickname for the insurgent forces). Once an area was secure, infrastructure could be built there; the people of the region could be connected up to the rest of the province, feel less isolated, see the changes the new sultan was making for the better in Dhofar.
And this struck right at the heart of the adoos' strategy. Formally known as the PFLOAG (Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arab Gulf), the guerrilla movement received training, indoctrination, and equipment from the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen, a Marxist regime in the state to the west of Oman along the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula. And that indoctrination called on them to break down social, tribal, and religious bonds among the people in order to forge a monolithic peoples' movement, the better to overthrow the feudal rule of the sultans. If the adoo were denied control over the population, they would lose the struggle. Something had to be done to break the morale of the SAF and demonstrate its inability to protect the population. The adoo leadership selected Mirbat as the place to make this break.
Mirbat was a small town on the coast between Salalah, the provincial capital, and Sudh, site of the first established firqat (local defense force). If the adoo could capture Mirbat, they would have struck right into the heart of the coastal plain, supposedly the government's backfield. The town's defenders consisted of a small group of Dhofari gendarmes (paramilitary police), some local militia, and the local BATT. BATTs (British Army Training Teams) were detachments of Special Air Service** troops who trained firqats and acted as advisors and cadre for them until they could operate on their own; in Mirbat on 19 July 1972, the BATT consisted of one officer, five NCOs, and three troopers. The Omani forces numbered less than 50.
More than 250 adoo were coming to attack Mirbat.
The first that the SAS team knew of the attack was gunfire coming from the hills around the town, where the adoo were ambushing a gendarme patrol and the firqat who had been returning to the town. Moments later, the full attack began on the clay fort occupied by the gendarmes on the outskirts of town. The BATT headquarters, a building between the fort and the town, sprang to life. SAS men began supporting the fort with mortar fire, a Browning 0.50 calibre heavy machinegun, and light General Purpose Machineguns (GPMGs). One trooper got on the radio to the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Sultan of Oman's Air Force (SOAF) bases in Salalah to request support. RAF Salalah immediately started loading an SAS squadron which happened to be on post to exchange with BATTs in country; the SOAF scrambled close air support aircraft, but mist and fog prevented them from attacking the adoo for some time.
SAS Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba, a Samoan,*** realised that the reinforcements and strike aircraft wouldn't come soon enough. He sprinted across several hundred meters of open ground, from the BATT House to the fort, and dove into the gun pit outside the fort where a 25 pounder artillery piece was emplaced. With the assistance of an Omani gendarme, Walid Khamis, and then by himself when the Omani was critically wounded, Labalaba worked the 25 pounder (which normally required a crew of six), pumping shell after shell into the enemy ranks at pointblank range. Another Samoan, Sergeant Sekonaia Takavesi, joined Labalaba and helped him fire the cannon and a 60mm mortar. Then Takavesi was shot and seriously wounded. The SAS commander, Michael Kealy, and a medic, Trooper Thomas Tobin, dashed across the killing zone between BATT House and the fort to join Labalaba. Labalaba, hit several times, eventualy collapsed and died. Tobin was incapacitated shortly after arriving; Kealy and the wounded Takavesi barely staved off the waves of adoo who continued to push closer and closer to the fort, bombarding the defenders with mortar, machinegun, rifle, and RPG fire. One enemy grenade landed in the gun pit but providentially failed to go off.
In what was surely the nick of time, the mist cleared enough for SOAF Bushmaster attack aircraft to made several runs, strafing and bombing the enemy in the face of heavy antiaircraft fire. The helicopters bringing in the SAS reinforcements had to make several passes before they could find a safe place to set down, the fire was so hot around the fort. Because they had come straight from arms qualification on base, the score or so of arriving SAS men carried nine GPMGs and four M-79 grenade launchers in addition to their SLR rifles--nearly four times the firepower such a small group would normally wield. Eventually the insurgents, faced with devastating fire from the air and on the ground, retreated back onto the jebel. Following them up, Kealy found and retrieved the remains of the firqat that had been ambushed by the adoos' covering force.
One BATT member had been killed and two seriously wounded (SAF casualties are unknown); somewhere between 40 and 200 insurgents lay dead, and the morale of the attack force was shattered. Never again would the guerrillas mount an attack of this magnitude on a government outpost.
Kealy received the Distinguished Service Order, Takavesi the Distinguished Conduct Medal; several British and Omani troops received the Sultan's Gallantry Medal. Though several of of Sgt. Labalaba's comrades felt he should have been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC)****, he only received a Mention in Despatches, as it was the only award at the time (apart from the VC) that could have been made posthumously. Surely his battle, in which he came close for a time to be the sole man standing against hundreds of the foe, constituted "most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy".
* I should really think of a better term for these, as an essay is really a work of reflection or philosophy, not a historical short; Bill used "vignette", but that's really more appropriate for the sort of brief look at a moment he was writing, whereas some of mine will be more a precis of a historical event, which may cover a long or short period of time. Suggestions welcome.
** The SAS is the British Army's special operations force, roughly equivalent to US Spacial Forces ("Green Berets") but also sometimes assigned duties that in the US Army might be carried out by Delta Force or Ranger units.
*** For some reason, Samoans gravitated to the SAS.
**** Britain's highest military award for gallantry, comparable to the US Congressional Medal of Honor.
Since the coup, the Sultan's Armed Forces (SAF) had begun a serious counterinsurgency campaign. They had begun setting up bases in the jebel (the mountainous plateau where most Dhofari lived and roamed with their cattle after the khareef--monsoon rains--ended and the land became lush and ripe for grazing). These bases allowed them to patrol further than they could if they came up from the coastal plain by day and returned to it at night. The patrols allowed them to interdict the movement of rebel forces and supplies, but most importantly they allowed them to create secure areas for civilians, to create a sense among the locals that they were safe from the adoo (literally "enemy", the common nickname for the insurgent forces). Once an area was secure, infrastructure could be built there; the people of the region could be connected up to the rest of the province, feel less isolated, see the changes the new sultan was making for the better in Dhofar.
And this struck right at the heart of the adoos' strategy. Formally known as the PFLOAG (Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman and the Arab Gulf), the guerrilla movement received training, indoctrination, and equipment from the Peoples' Democratic Republic of Yemen, a Marxist regime in the state to the west of Oman along the bottom of the Arabian Peninsula. And that indoctrination called on them to break down social, tribal, and religious bonds among the people in order to forge a monolithic peoples' movement, the better to overthrow the feudal rule of the sultans. If the adoo were denied control over the population, they would lose the struggle. Something had to be done to break the morale of the SAF and demonstrate its inability to protect the population. The adoo leadership selected Mirbat as the place to make this break.
Mirbat was a small town on the coast between Salalah, the provincial capital, and Sudh, site of the first established firqat (local defense force). If the adoo could capture Mirbat, they would have struck right into the heart of the coastal plain, supposedly the government's backfield. The town's defenders consisted of a small group of Dhofari gendarmes (paramilitary police), some local militia, and the local BATT. BATTs (British Army Training Teams) were detachments of Special Air Service** troops who trained firqats and acted as advisors and cadre for them until they could operate on their own; in Mirbat on 19 July 1972, the BATT consisted of one officer, five NCOs, and three troopers. The Omani forces numbered less than 50.
More than 250 adoo were coming to attack Mirbat.
The first that the SAS team knew of the attack was gunfire coming from the hills around the town, where the adoo were ambushing a gendarme patrol and the firqat who had been returning to the town. Moments later, the full attack began on the clay fort occupied by the gendarmes on the outskirts of town. The BATT headquarters, a building between the fort and the town, sprang to life. SAS men began supporting the fort with mortar fire, a Browning 0.50 calibre heavy machinegun, and light General Purpose Machineguns (GPMGs). One trooper got on the radio to the Royal Air Force (RAF) and Sultan of Oman's Air Force (SOAF) bases in Salalah to request support. RAF Salalah immediately started loading an SAS squadron which happened to be on post to exchange with BATTs in country; the SOAF scrambled close air support aircraft, but mist and fog prevented them from attacking the adoo for some time.
SAS Sergeant Talaiasi Labalaba, a Samoan,*** realised that the reinforcements and strike aircraft wouldn't come soon enough. He sprinted across several hundred meters of open ground, from the BATT House to the fort, and dove into the gun pit outside the fort where a 25 pounder artillery piece was emplaced. With the assistance of an Omani gendarme, Walid Khamis, and then by himself when the Omani was critically wounded, Labalaba worked the 25 pounder (which normally required a crew of six), pumping shell after shell into the enemy ranks at pointblank range. Another Samoan, Sergeant Sekonaia Takavesi, joined Labalaba and helped him fire the cannon and a 60mm mortar. Then Takavesi was shot and seriously wounded. The SAS commander, Michael Kealy, and a medic, Trooper Thomas Tobin, dashed across the killing zone between BATT House and the fort to join Labalaba. Labalaba, hit several times, eventualy collapsed and died. Tobin was incapacitated shortly after arriving; Kealy and the wounded Takavesi barely staved off the waves of adoo who continued to push closer and closer to the fort, bombarding the defenders with mortar, machinegun, rifle, and RPG fire. One enemy grenade landed in the gun pit but providentially failed to go off.
In what was surely the nick of time, the mist cleared enough for SOAF Bushmaster attack aircraft to made several runs, strafing and bombing the enemy in the face of heavy antiaircraft fire. The helicopters bringing in the SAS reinforcements had to make several passes before they could find a safe place to set down, the fire was so hot around the fort. Because they had come straight from arms qualification on base, the score or so of arriving SAS men carried nine GPMGs and four M-79 grenade launchers in addition to their SLR rifles--nearly four times the firepower such a small group would normally wield. Eventually the insurgents, faced with devastating fire from the air and on the ground, retreated back onto the jebel. Following them up, Kealy found and retrieved the remains of the firqat that had been ambushed by the adoos' covering force.
One BATT member had been killed and two seriously wounded (SAF casualties are unknown); somewhere between 40 and 200 insurgents lay dead, and the morale of the attack force was shattered. Never again would the guerrillas mount an attack of this magnitude on a government outpost.
Kealy received the Distinguished Service Order, Takavesi the Distinguished Conduct Medal; several British and Omani troops received the Sultan's Gallantry Medal. Though several of of Sgt. Labalaba's comrades felt he should have been awarded the Victoria Cross (VC)****, he only received a Mention in Despatches, as it was the only award at the time (apart from the VC) that could have been made posthumously. Surely his battle, in which he came close for a time to be the sole man standing against hundreds of the foe, constituted "most conspicuous bravery, or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice, or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy".
* I should really think of a better term for these, as an essay is really a work of reflection or philosophy, not a historical short; Bill used "vignette", but that's really more appropriate for the sort of brief look at a moment he was writing, whereas some of mine will be more a precis of a historical event, which may cover a long or short period of time. Suggestions welcome.
** The SAS is the British Army's special operations force, roughly equivalent to US Spacial Forces ("Green Berets") but also sometimes assigned duties that in the US Army might be carried out by Delta Force or Ranger units.
*** For some reason, Samoans gravitated to the SAS.
**** Britain's highest military award for gallantry, comparable to the US Congressional Medal of Honor.
