Here are some images of a Submariner from the same batch.
The Omani Sea Dwellers & Subs
The area around the Arabian Sea was important to Britain over 150 years ago, as it was an important staging post on the sea routes to India. This importance became magnified when steam ships were introduced and coaling stations became vital. The port of Aden was conquered by British forces in 1839 and because of its good harbour became the lynch pin of British power for many years.
After WW II Britain began to withdraw its forces from many of the newly independent colonies and protectorates, the importance of Aden actually increased.
Immediately after WW II, most of the countries in the Middle East were monarchies with their rulers naturally inclining towards the West. However, during the 50s and 60s a series of coups and revolutions deposed these leaders in Syria, Lybia, Iraq and Egypt and most of these new heads of state began to lean towards the Soviet bloc. Within a short time these countries became a rallying point for discontented groups in the remaining monarchies and rebellions & insurgencies broke out in many of the smaller Gulf states.
Aden became a flashpoint and insurgents began a program of shooting at British residents, civilian & military alike. After a particularly vicious incident in which the local police murdered a British officer & seven men, all British forces were withdrawn from the centre of Aden (known as Crater).
The newly arrived Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders under the command of Lt Col. Colin Mitchell decided to retake Crater and did so in an operation that is still seen as a text book case. They established their Battalion HQ in the Chartered Bank building and Lt. Col. Mitchell made his operations room on the floor above, the local HQ of the Rolex Watch Company. Incidentally, after the A&SH handed the building back 5 months later, not one watch was missing.
There were two groups fighting against the British in Aden, the National Liberation Front (NLF), a communist group, and Front for Liberating Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY), inspired and supported by Egypt’s president Gamal Abdul Nasser and North Yemen. As the date for the British withdrawal approached, they ceased fighting the British & turned their guns on each other in a deadly struggle for supremacy after independence.
When the British withdrew in 1967 it was the NLF who were in charge and they wasted little time in declaring the country to be the first Marxist Arab state as the People’s Democratic Republican of Yemen (PDRY).
The new regime began to give help to other revolutionary groups in the region and aided a loose alliance of tribesmen in the Dhofar region of neighbouring Oman.
Oman at this time was perhaps the most autocratic state in the world; the Sultan Sa'id ibn Taymur forbad both education and even internal travel.
The Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arab Gulf (later called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman; PFLO) gained control of the growing rebellion by the late 1960s with the aid of the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union and PDRY.
The Dhofar rebellion led to a palace coup on July 23, 1970, when Sultan Sa'id was overthrown by his son, Qabus ibn Sa'id. Qabus, who had been trained in Britain at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst, quickly reversed his father's policy of isolation and began to develop and modernize Oman. Sultan Qabus appointed the country's first official cabinet and took steps toward building a modern government structure. Qabus served as prime minister after his uncle, Tariq ibn Taymur, resigned the position, and he also held the post of minister of defense and foreign affairs. At the same time, the rebellion in Dhofar continued.
As Sultan Qabus had trained at Sandhurst he was well aware of the capabilities of the British Special Air Services (SAS) and acting through the official channels he asked for their help.
Initially one squadron was sent (a squadron comprises 4 troops each with 32 men, who are further divided into 8 four man patrols), then a second was sent. They began to occupy and fortify commanding positions on the mountain range throughout the Dhofar region. From these positions they began a “hearts & minds” campaign amongst the local tribes people, working in close co-operation with units from the Medical Support Wing at Hereford (RAMC medics serving with 22 SAS), some Royal Engineers providing new wells and civic buildings (schools etc) and a few members of the Army Education Corps. Their task was made easier as the insurgents were fervent Marxists and this did not sit well with the locals who were devout muslims.
Over the next few months many of the locals who had fought with the insurgents began to defect to the Omani side and the SAS formed them into “counter gangs”, using their superior local knowledge & family ties. This was a strategy that had worked well for the SAS in both Kenya and Malaya and it proved successful in Oman too. The rebels decided that their only hope lay in a decisive victory over the SAS in a location of their own choice and they chose the southern town of Mirbat. There were 9 SAS soldiers in the local training HQ, (British Army Training Teams or BATT) and a contingent of the local Police (the DG) in the fort that dominated the town.
As the morning fog enveloped the town over 250 Adoos (the local name for the rebels) advanced on the fort, they were the best men the Adoos had and were equipped with the best weapons in their arsenal; AK 47s, heavy, medium & light machine guns, mortars, grenades, rocket launchers and even an 84mm Carl Gustav anti tank missile.
The battle lasted 3 hours and is best described in “Soldier I” (ISBN –7475-0563-2 ) written by one of the SAS involved in the battle; when it was over 2 SAS troopers were dead and around 80 of the Adoos met a similar fate. They never again attempted an attack in force and within three years the rebellion was over.
There is a tradition in the Gulf of gift giving and for some reason Rolex watches seem to be one of the preferred gifts, there is a special department at the Geneva HQ that provides these specially designed watches. Most of them have unique dials where all of the text below the centre hole is deleted and the insignia of the sovereign or the country is then printed in this space.
The level of respect shown to the recipient of a gift is judged by the value of the gift offered to them. This means that most of these watches are in 18k gold and often have jewelled bezels and or dials. However Sultan Quabus knew enough about the British Army to know that solid gold Day Dates were not normal wear, not even in the officers’ mess and chose the Rolex Submariner or Sea Dweller as the watch he gave to every British soldier whom he met. These watches had the insignia of Oman below the centre post and seem to come in 2 versions, with the insignia in red or gold. I have seen about 4 or 5 red ones and only 1 gold one, and I have been told that the “red” ones were given to “other ranks” whilst the “gold” ones were for officers.
British troops on active duty are not normally allowed to accept gifts for performing their duty, however on this occasion this restriction did not apply. This was because the SAS were not actually on active duty, they were in Oman on a “training mission” which was why they were always referred to as the British Army Training Teams in all official documents at the time.
The pictures shown below are of the only “gold dial” Omani Sea Dweller to pass through my hands, please accept my apologies for the bad quality of the images.
Here are some images of a Submariner from the same batch.