RAFMRS - Mountain Desert Rescue Team by Danny Daniel

Click title to return to Articles Page

RAF KHORMAKSAR MOUNTAIN DESERT RESCUE TEAM

ADEN 1966

During the sixties the Middle East, especially the Aden Colony and Southern Yemen was a hotbed of terrorist activity. (Some things never change). This activity greatly curtailed the operations of the Mountain Desert Rescue Team (MDRT) based at RAF Khormaksar in Aden

Danny Daniel

Regular attacks were made on the British forces in and around the Colony and booby traps and mines were indiscriminately planted. To counteract these threats and to allow the MDRT to train in the desert environment, the MR troops carried personal arms in the form of a Lee Enfield .303 rifle and a bandolier of 50 rounds of ammunition. To overcome the landmine problem, the team was supplied with new armour plated Landover’s. These open topped vehicles had heavy armoured bases and a massive roll bar over the cab area. The driver and shotgun had good seats and seat belts but the extra troops were carried on the open back which was suitably padded out with old mattresses and they hung onto the roll bar for dear life when on rough ground.

Armour Plating and Rollbars

Exercises took place often on a daily basis in the afternoons as work finished at 1pm.
The norm would be to go into the desert away from Aden’s built up areas and do some desert navigation and in safe areas a bit of walking. The small villages we visited were always full of friendly Arabs not like the nasties in the towns.
One of the worst areas for attacks was the town of Sheikh Othman. This was linked to Khormaksar by a causeway and the team had to transit through the place to get out into the bondoo. The army units that manned the checkpoints were always being fired upon and as we went through the place we always had a round up the spout just in case.

On Exercise at Ballbutton Range

The Team Leader at this time was the late Colin ‘Pib’ Pibworth a man of the desert if there ever was one and most of the troops were from UK MR teams so there was great MR camaraderie and high jinks. Like the UK teams, we had our own dedicated section, which was well out of the normal RAF’s way, and it even had a lawn and a cairn.

‘Pib’ Pibworth

The only hill we had for climbing was in the Colony, Jebel Shamsan, it was technically out of bounds because of the troubles but we normally got round this problem and it gave a good days outing.

Troops on the summit of Jebel Shamsan

Towards the end of 1966, Britain decided to withdraw from Aden and as a consequence, the team was moved up the gulf to RAF Sharjah. Unfortunately, only the PS moved to Sharjah and us part timers had to fester on in Aden until tourex.
Still, it was an aspect of MR, which was really enjoyable, and you never know, we might end up with a team in Iraq!

Danny Daniel
(Words and photographs courtesy of Neil 'Danny' Daniel)

Return to the Top of the Page