Beyond No Mean Soldier: The Explosive Recollections of a Former Special Forces Operator

By Peter McAleese

The SAS veteran, mercenary and author of No Mean Soldier looks back on a life of combat in this revised and expanded edition of his classic memoir.
 
Peter McAleese’s No Mean Soldier set the bar for the modern military memoir. This completely revised and expanded edition sees a philosophical McAleese revisiting his time with Britain's Parachute Regiment, the SAS, Rhodesia's SAS and the South African Defense Force's 44 Para Brigade. Peter also recounts a range of other adventures, from his experiences with private military companies to near fatal skydiving accidents.
 
With previously unpublished photos from McAleese’s private collection, Beyond No Mean Soldier delves deeper and further into the author’s wide-ranging experiences, the men he's served with, and the operations he'd conducted. Here in startling detail are the Aden insurgency; covert operations with the Rhodesian SAS; one of the first ever operational HALO inserts in British military history; assaults on SWAPO positions with 44 Para's Pathfinder Company; a botched assassination attempt in Colombia; and much more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 19, 2015
• ISBN: 9781911096795

Book preview

Peter McAleese needs little introduction … His classic book No Mean Soldier was an immediate bestseller and set the bar for the modern military memoir. Few have since met its match. This completely revised and expanded edition sees a philosophical McAleese revisiting his time with Britain’s Parachute Regiment, the SAS, Rhodesia’s SAS and the South African Defence Force’s 44 Para Brigade. Oh, and a few other adventures in and between – Colombia, private military companies and near fatal skydiving accidents; mercenary, soldier of fortune or flawed ideologist? Now’s your time to consider this and more – as has McAleese himself. It’s a compelling read – and with the addition of previously unpublished photos from McAleese’s private collection, there’s no other way to describe it. Beyond No Mean Soldier does exactly that, going deep and further beyond the experience of No Mean Soldier. Over many months and into the early hours, McAleese reflected on his wide and expansive experiences – the men he’s served with and the operations he’d conducted. Here in startling detail are the Aden insurgency, covert operations with the Rhodesian SAS and one of the first ever operational HALO inserts in British military history. The sheer terror of flawed mercenary operations in Angola with the likes of ‘Colonel Callan’ and heart pumping assaults on SWAPO positions with 44 Para’s Pathfinder Company; near death in Colombia when an assassination attempt went terribly wrong. McAleese recounts all of this with amazing clarity and even more humility. ‘I’m just an ordinary person who happened to find himself doing extraordinary things’ he says. Yes, perhaps that’s true to a point, but what rides through all of McAleese’s narrative is his total commitment to the profession of arms – soldiering. His attention to detail, his consummate knowledge of military skills from field craft to skill at arms; airborne operations to the tactics of small unit SAS operations…. All of this echoed by the commentary of the numerous individuals that served with McAleese. From around the world, dozens have contributed perspective, commentary and reflection. Pete does not take fools gladly and this is based upon his comprehensive combat experience where idiots will cause casualties Alistair MacKenzie – Former 22 SAS Officer. I managed to get myself into some very nasty but also exciting scraps while latching on to the Pathfinders to see how they were shaping up as the so-called ‘Philistines’. They did excellently while under fire, proof that Peter’s selection and training regime paid high dividends Colonel Jan Breytenbach – Former Commander 44 Para Brigade Pathfinder Company, Founder 32 Battalion. These are just two of the contributions featured in Beyond No Mean Soldier. In an age where we debate courage and leadership, it’s all here. Go Beyond No Mean Soldier, it will certainly change the way you see soldiering.

The author, Peter McAleese, 1969

Originally from Glasgow, Peter McAleese found a way out of the slums by joining the British Army. He joined the Parachute Regiment and found himself in the Mortar Platoon – traditionally the hardest platoon in any Battalion. He went onto the SAS and saw action in Borneo before being sent back to the Parachute Regiment in disgrace for fighting.

Things started to go wrong after he was demobbed from the army, when he found himself detained once or twice at Her Majesty’s pleasure. On release, he endured the horrors of the Angolan civil war as a hired gun where many of his colleagues were murdered at the hand of Colonel Callan and his associates. Service in the Rhodesian SAS followed and thereafter, South Africa’s 44 Para Brigade, where he saw extensive action in the, then, South West Africa, now Namibia.

Security work in South Africa followed. Here McAleese was to dice even closer with death when his canopy failed during an exhibition skydive. Lucky to retain the use of his legs and troubled by injuries that still persist today, McAleese went on to an assassination ‘job’ where his helicopter crashed, leaving him injured and stranded on a mountain for three days. From this, he moved to a private military company working in Algeria for eleven years.

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Designed and typeset by Bookcraft Ltd, Stroud, Gloucestershire

Cover designed by Euan Carter, Leicester (www.euancarter.com)

Printed by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester, Dorset

Text © Peter McAleese 2015

Photographs © Author’s collection

ISBN: 978-1-910294-01-7

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-911096-79-5

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

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Contents

List of photographs

The author, Peter McAleese, 1969

Lethamhill Road, Glasgow. The site of Number 15 is on the left of the picture. Barlinnie Prison is visible on the right (my father’s cell was top right).

My grandfather, ‘Old Miles’, attired in Highland uniform.

Aged eight, at St Thomas’s School, Riddrie, Glasgow.

GOC inspection, Fort Bragg. I was extremely proud to be serving with the SAS and to have the opportunity to train at Fort Bragg. John Woodhouse looks on – an amazing Commanding Officer.

Fort Bragg, HALO training with US Special Forces, 1962. We spent almost five months cross-training with them.

‘Every Man an Emperor’; A Company, 1 Para on parade in Aden, 1963. Drill wasn’t especially our thing, but when the occasion occurred, we did it well.

Cyprus with the UN. Surveying the ground from Mount Kyrenia, 1964. Four of my colleagues shown went on to serve with other foreign armies.

Dislocation of expectation; moving a captured terrorist, Aden 1965. He was shortly to be placed into the care of the Intelligence Officer.

The fort at Ataq in Aden, 1966.

16 Troop, 22 SAS in Aden, against the backdrop of the Jebel Barash. The SLR was purposefully placed to point towards us! Outrage amongst the Skill at Arms instructors!

On operations with the SAS in the Jebel Barash area – Aden, 1965.

Another evening run completed. You were expected to maintain a peak of fitness in the SAS.

Range work with the SAS – Aden, 1965. The 5.56mm ArmaLite was our issued personal weapon in Aden – though some still preferred the FN 7.62mm SLR.

Freefall training for Op Snowgoose. Readied at the manifest at Little Aden, 1967.

Another rehearsal jump for Op Snowgoose.

As a fresh-faced SAS Trooper in Borneo, 1965.

The Small Arms School – Hythe, Kent. The Small Arms Instructors’ Course; seated first left, 1967.

The Tactics Course at the NCOs’ Tactical Wing, Parachute Regiment Battle School, Brecon; standing at the end of the third row. Today it is known as the Infantry Battle School, Brecon.

Angola, the killing days … My FNLA ID card. Seemingly everywhere on the World Wide Web these days.

The selection training team kept a little black book… It seems I was noted!

Rhodesia 1977 – Basic Para Course with an assortment of RLI, Selous Scouts and SAS soldiers. It was a virtual repeat of the British Para Course. I am standing right.

Flying over Salisbury. The New Sarum Airfield was extensively used by the Rhodesian SAS.

During the attack on the ZANLA camp at Muroro, with the Rhodesian SAS.

Preparing to attack ‘DK’ – a ZIPRA camp in Zambia with the Rhodesian SAS. The informer who led us to the camp is sitting on the ground.

‘DK’ camp burning after the attack.

At the SAS base camp – Mana Pools – on the Zambian border, 1977.

With Jane and Pete Donnelly at Bindura Registry Office, 24 January 1980. The happiest day of my life.

The ‘Mad Max’ wagons of 44 Para crossing the Kalahari Desert; adapted Land Rover chassis’ to the fore, with German Unimogs following. 44 Para were decades ahead of their time when it came to the use of vehicles.

Namibia, 44 Para convoy halt. Attired in my trusty British DPM waterproof (acquired from a friend who brought it out from the UK – and for me then to relieve him of it!).

Zeroing the vehicle-mounted 7.62mm MAG and .50 cal guns – a scene repeated a million times in recent years by UK Special Forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.

The training office at 44 Para, Murray Hill. What was an old farmhouse was turned into a state-of-the-art training facility. I believe it is still in use today.

Observing support weapons training at Murray Hill.

Jock Phillips instructing on the 60mm ‘Commando’ mortar. Practice rounds were used. Jock was ever the consummate professional who would work ceaselessly to ensure perfection.

Conversion jump at 44 Para for those ranks that had acquired their parachute qualifications in other armies. We had a mix of British, American and French ranks to train.

About to emplane for a fundraising skydive in aid of ParaBat welfare funds.

November 1981, Op Daisy – the SADF’s offensive into Namibia. Fitting parachutes and securing weapons with Jim Burgess for the ‘jump in’.

Murray Hill training area 1982 – supervising a bunker clearance serial.

Down time at Tshipise Hot Springs – just adjacent to where scenes from the movie ‘The Wild Geese’ were filmed.

Working with 32 Battalion, 200 km deep into Angola.

Accolade indeed from one of the most progressive soldiers of our time: Colonel Jan Breytenbach.

‘Team Colombia’ – yet another day’s training; attention to detail was essential.

Colombia: planning the Escobar attack at the flat in Cali (Dave Tomkins).

Zeroing weapons in preparation for the attack on Pablo Escobar’s villa (Dave Tomkins).

Conducting an air recce in Colombia. Everything was meticulously planned.

The final dress rehearsal at La Gagua training camp (Dave Tompkins).

The wreck of the Hughes helicopter shortly after we had crashed into the mountainside (Dave Tomkins).

The Gunmakers Arms in 1991. It closed some time ago, but there is now another pub with the same name in Birmingham.

Russia 1992 – flanked by two ex-Soviet security personnel undergoing close protection training. They were huge and menacing Siberians!

With Derek Andrew, ex-44 Para, on a security job, London, mid-1990s.

Just one of the many presentation pieces I’ve received from those I’ve worked with in the global security industry.

At home with William, Imelda, Catherine and Marina.

IN COLOUR SECTION

On the semi-submersible drilling platform ‘Sedco K’ in the North Sea, 1974. A monastic existence if ever! I needed to get back to the military – and Rhodesia called.

The Rhodesian SAS; range work to ensure my ever-reliable FN was ‘green on’. We used live ammunition all the time. Training was very rarely ‘dry’.

Flying back from the Muroro camp attack with George McLagen.

Training surrendered enemy personnel, Bindura, for Special Branch. They were used by the Branch as ‘force multipliers’ to be deployed where they could best use their language skills and local knowledge.

44 Para, Pete Jooste instructing on the 40mm grenade launcher. A nonchalant officer lets his attention wander in the background!

Leading a Special Branch sweep in Bindura. The days were long and the pace relentless.

Conversing with the officers prior to Op Daisy. Despite their Calvinistic fervour, I found the South African officers good to work with.

Going firm for the night on Op Daisy. We had exhausted our water supplies and so were forced to halt for the night. American KD Clark and I ponder next moves.

Trialling a new camouflage-patterned smock with 44 Para. Known as ‘Giraffe’ pattern, it was never adopted for operational use.

Instructing on demolitions and improvised explosive devices.

Fire and manoeuvre; under the relentless African sun, 44 Para trained until their tactics were the best they could be.

Keeping the SADF in the public eye – a fundraising freefall display in aid of Parabat welfare organisations.

Moving the ‘Voice of America’ into position for a range session. The 50 cal was an indispensable support weapon for the Pathfinder Company.

Colombia: rehearsals, rehearsals and yet more rehearsals. We spent 12 weeks training for the Escobar raid.

Recuperating after the helicopter crash. It had been a very near thing.

Russia – training Close Protection Teams. My colleague, ‘Afghanistan’, adopts the ‘inert’ position.

Preface

It was never explained in No Mean Soldier what I meant by the title. People would say to me, What’s that about then Pete? I guess it’s time to set the scene again and explain what I was trying to get at. I derived the title from the Kingsley Long and McArthur novel, No Mean City. Published in 1935, this book is an account of life in the Glasgow slums where the truly hard lived, quarrelled and died. It is where I was born and brought up. It was where I was schooled and where I learnt that to survive, you had to be hard. The area was notorious for its razor gangs whose exploits were accurately captured in the novel and who reflected the sectarianism that was rife in Glasgow throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Way back then, as a gang member, you were either in a Catholic or a Protestant gang. Simple as that. As to which of the razor gangs were more violent? I would say they were all equally vicious – whether you a member of the Beehive Boys or the Govan Team – it was all about the same thing: identity, territory, religion and money.

Still in print today, No Mean City is seen as probably the best account ever of life in the slums. It captures working class life in all its gritty forms, the poverty, the violence and the drudgery of despair. It drew its own title from a quote from the book of Acts in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul says, I am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city: and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people. (Acts 9:11).

All this seemed apt to me in 1993 – a title that captured my memories of Glasgow and reflected my own single-minded pursuit of the profession of arms. I had always wanted to be a soldier and through the process of persuasion – well I suppose you could call it that – the Parachute Regiment and the Special Air Service turned me into a fairly professional one – indeed, into No Mean Soldier. Well I certainly like to think so…

It was actually economics that led me to the army; I needed a job – and whilst I was never a bad soldier, I was a badly-behaved one. Suffice to say, I found working on this new edition and looking Beyond No Mean Soldier most interesting. It has enabled me to look back and reflect. Thinking back through yet another bank holiday downpour, I do believe my behaviour held me back career-wise, but then I was never really a career soldier bashing the drill square and the guardroom. I always wanted to be outdoors, living in the field. Up to my neck in muck, stinking of cam cream, hexamine and weapon oil. That was where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing. I loved it and knew that one day I would be in action and that I would have to rely upon myself and my military skills to close upon – and kill the enemy.

Service life is full of ups and downs, but I still believe that the army has much to offer any adventurous and fit young man; the comradeship, that sense of shared belonging and focus, a drive to be the best and more. Values that seem to be frowned upon today but yet, as we encounter an ever more uncertain world, are more important as we seek to understand ourselves and our national destiny.

Years mellow the mind and you realise that many career soldiers play the system for their own benefit. They magic up their own self-importance and lord over their cushy little domains such as the MT shed or the Training Office. They attend today’s reunions with tales of ‘derring-do’; better soldiers now rather than when they were actually in service! I watch them at work sometimes, conducting fire and manoeuvre over sodden beer mats at the bar. It always raises a quiet smile

It was Steve Crump who got me thinking about having another look at Beyond No Mean Soldier. He talked about revisiting a classic; the staple of the 1990s for anyone interested in soldiering and a book that set the bar for others to reach. It’s been fascinating as I’ve reached into myself in a way I never thought possible. My chest-thumping days are long gone and the way I see things has certainly changed. That’s the wisdom of age isn’t it? I’m not as harsh now on myself and others as I used to be, but then that was the army – the Parachute Regiment and the SAS in particular – the pursuit of excellence and to be the best; of course it was going to shape me. It was that which would send me into a rage when someone dropped a mess tin. It was also that which would make me take the 44 Para guys through their field craft drills, again and again, until they’d got it right and were ready to drop. I call it professionalism and because I loved a fight, I wanted to be sure I could always generate the maximum amount of lethal violence possible.

The first edition of this book was partially about setting the record straight on some of the lies that have been written about me. It seems there are still those who have misunderstood what makes me tick. I’m amazed what I read on the internet about me, but there’s no getting away from the fact that I’m hugely proud that I served as a professional, regular soldier in the Parachute Regiment and 22 Special Air Service Regiment in Britain; in the Rhodesian Special Air Service and in the Pathfinder Company of the South African Defence Force’s 44 Parachute Brigade. I am especially proud of the fact that I took part in the first ever operational HALO insertion conducted by the British SAS and that I set the precedent for subsequent and recent operational insertions. All of which, I’m afraid, must remain secret in the domain of Mars and Minerva.

But above all, I’m hugely proud that in the last 12 months, I looked into and Beyond No Mean Soldier.

Acknowledgements

Iwould like to thank Mark Bles for all his hard work with the first edition of No Mean Soldier, an incredible success that sold thousands of copies around the globe and publisher Steve Crump of GG Books UK for getting me to revisit matters. I would like to especially thank Steve and his co-publisher, Duncan Rogers of Helion & Company, for their belief in this venture. It means a lot to me.

I must also thank all contributors to this second edition and to those who submitted commentary and reminisces to the publishers. They’re almost too many to recount, but I must give a special mention to Jan Breytenbach, Alistair MacKenzie, Graham Gillmore, Hendrick van Niekerk, Gary Watson, Steve Kluzniak and Mark Adams. Gentlemen, to all of you, thank you.

Special thanks go to Imelda McAleese too for the long hours spent editing and proofing my tattered notes; let me put that kettle on again and bring out the Hobnobs. It’ll be a long night on the keyboard! Thank you, Imelda.

Also, much love to Jane McAleese and my family in Hereford and Birmingham for their long, enduring and unconditional love. Over the years and through many adventures, good times and bad times, your loving support has known no bounds. I am truly indebted.

1

First Principles

O Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make,

And who with Eden didst devise the Snake:

For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man

Is blackened-Man’s forgiveness give-and take.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

(translated by Edward Fitzgerald)

Icould not describe the first person I killed, nor the last. There is nothing personal in that. I have never felt any personal animosity towards the enemies I have fought. It was just the way it happened, in the darkness, in the chaos, the turmoil of fighting, but the first time was important to me, as I suppose it must be for anyone.

We were in the Aden Protectorate, about four hours’ uncomfortable driving in a truck from Aden Port over a rough-graded road into the interior which was an arid desert land of harsh rocky mountains. We lived in Habilayn, a dusty camp of tents, barbed wire and sandbags which the British Army had pegged out in neat military lines in the middle of a flat plain circled by hills, where our enemy lived. Every evening as the sun went down, the gunners fired the 105s into the mouths of wadis from which they thought the enemy would emerge to attack us. A group of us waited to go out on night patrol and I felt like a soldier on the North-West Frontier, listening to the roar of the guns and watching the orange explosions far out on the darkening hillsides while the sky faded to deep blue. Stars appeared in the east and away across the guy ropes and poles of Habilayn Camp and I could faintly hear the garrison bugler sounding the Retreat.

When the guns fell silent after nightfall, we walked out, in two half-squadron groups, in single file through the barbed wire and pickets towards the dark jagged ridges to the west under a black sky hanging with thousands of stars. The ground was brutal, rocky, like a moonscape and we humped heavy rucksacks, old Para-type, with canvas sacks and A-frames. We carried our trusty SLRs (Self Loading Rifles) and wore trousers and shirts, OG (olive green) and Clarks’ desert shoes because they were light and cooler than boots.

Our enemy were Arab tribesmen, the National Liberation Front (the NLF) and their rivals the Federation for the Liberation of South Yemen (FLOSY). They were hard men with dark faces, fine looking, with long hair and dirty robes. They lived like the Saracens of centuries ago but they had 20th century weapons, from the huge Second World War arms dumps which the British Army had left behind in Egypt when we were booted out after Suez in 1956, only nine years before.

The thing I remember most about the march that night was being literally soaked with sweat. I followed Sergeant Dave Haley, our patrol commander, or rather the huge rucksack on legs in front of me which was all he seemed to be. He stopped us every hour for a break. When I sat down, I shivered as the sweat cooled on me in the night air and I worried about the amount of water I would need. I was carrying two one-gallon heavy-duty plastic water containers in my rucksack and had two more water bottles on my belt kit. With that and ammunition, seven magazines and an extra link for the gunner carrying the GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun), and food, which was last in order of priority, our rucksacks weighed nearly 90 lbs – excluding what we carried in pouches on our belts. It was tiring work and we needed to replace all the fluid lost.

In darkness, we crossed a small range of hills about four miles from Habilayn and then the moon came up. Six miles later, somewhere after midnight, we started to climb up the side of the Jebel Barash, which was very distinct, a sharp ridge with two mounds on it like a camel’s hump. We slogged upwards, each one of us exhausted, drenched with sweat and almost mindlessly following the dark shape of the man ahead, until we finally breasted the top and moved into a saddle, on a reverse slope. We collected loose rocks lying about, of which there was no shortage, to make sangars (protective walls) and then set up our shade for the day ahead. I stretched four netted face veils sewn together across the sangar, from wall to wall, held with rocks and supported in the middle with bits of stick I always brought with me. There weren’t any trees in those mountains, not that we would have been allowed to go out and cut them. We settled down to rest, sleep and lie up for the day.

The heat was really intense, and the Jebel was bare, like the moon. You could see for miles. Any movement in the open would have been seen by the enemy tribesmen who kept lookouts sitting about on the tops of the mountains, so before first light we always ran a piece of string out between the sangars tied to a rock which could be moved to attract the attention of people in other sangars. This meant sentry duty was done sangar by sangar, in pairs so one person could not fall asleep on his own, and the sangars were mutually supporting. We used binos, with the objective lenses covered with a piece of face veil, in case the enemy saw a glint of reflected sunlight.

The year before, a nine-man patrol from 3 Troop of ‘A’ Squadron had marched into the centre of the Radfan mountains and a goatherd had stumbled across them by chance. The enemy had grouped fast, pinned them down all day and killed two and wounded another two before the patrol could make a fighting withdrawal to safety. We were 16 and we had plenty of support, A41 radios to call up the 105 mm artillery and Sarbe radios to bring in RAF ground-attack Hunter jets, and I could even see Habilayn Camp in heat haze far below us on the valley floor, but all that seemed a long way off and we kept very still in our sangars.

In the heat of the afternoon, we ate our meal – curry and rice – had a brew of tea, and then packed our rucksacks ready to go. As the sun faded, we had stand-down, a fine British military tradition. We crouched in our sangars, weapons ready, peering over the rocky hillside for about three-quarters of an hour while the sun set. This marked the transition from day routine to night routine. After dark, we took down the face veils, stowed them away and set about taking down the sangars, scattering the rocks about.

Then we started walking down the western side of the Jebel Barash into a small wadi which connected with the Wadi Mishwarrah. Halfway through the night after about four hours’ walking, Dave Haley stopped us at some muddy water and we filled our water bottles. Our Troop Sergeant, Dave was the consummate SAS soldier – short, stocky and aggressive. A steady guy and a first class role model for me. If he said, Fill yer water bottles! then we did it!

The water was filthy and brackish, but we were gasping. I filled my bottles without a second’s thought and added the blue and white sterilisation tablets. Suddenly I smelled a scented sweetness on the still night air and the next moment a young goatherd appeared. ‘Shep’ Shepherd was leading scout and Dave called me forward to speak to the goatherd. I had done an Arabic course in Aden three years before and was on the patrol to act as his interpreter. It wasn’t a language I found easy, but here I was, ready to translate at a moment’s notice.

"Salaam alikum, I said softly; Greetings to you."

"Wa’alikum salaam! And to you!" he replied, shouting.

When I asked him if he had seen any other British soldiers, he shouted, "Aywa! Yes!" About half an hour before.

"Uskat, uskat! Be calm," I said, warning him to make less noise, whilst quickly translating for Dave Haley, who was just to my left with his weapon at the ready.

The goatherd talked as if he had seen the other half-squadron which we knew was ahead of us and which sounded as if it had turned back up the Wadi Mishwarrah, while the goatherd had come into our tributary wadi behind them. We assumed everything was going according to plan, and moved on, carefully. The moon was not up yet and it was so dark in the narrow wadi I could only just see the rock walls rearing up beside us.

Five minutes later, Dave Haley whispered, Pete, come up. There’s some more chappies down here. I padded up to Dave to speak to them and made out the dark shapes of a group of shepherds, lying on the ground ahead. Just as I started to speak, I saw one of them shift on his side. It was probably the way he moved which warned me and I thought, This is never right!

Without any warning, the Arab shot Dave Haley, full in the chest. I wasn’t surprised – I think I expected something like this, but thinking now, he should have shot me as I was closest, standing to one side, ready to interpret. If the Arab had got a clear line on me, I’d have been a real goner.

Dave collapsed, badly wounded, and I instinctively shot the Arab – five times – then all hell let loose. The wadi walls came in close just there and bright red tracer streamed past, pinning me to the warm rock at the side. The enemy had Russian made DPM light machine guns with the big pan-shaped magazines on the top and the darkness echoed with shouting and screaming as they started throwing old British 36 grenades.

The others behind me ran to the flanks at once, Mick Seale shouting he was going to one side and Shep to the other, climbing the steep rocks to find a higher position where they poured fire down onto the enemy. Our medic, Jock Phillips, came up to help Dave Haley who had somehow managed to crawl to one side.

I heard a vicious explosive crack at my feet as the detonator from a grenade went off – if the thing had properly gone off then I would have been in serious trouble. I doubled back from my exposed position in the middle of the wadi and scrambled up the rocks to join the flanking movement. As I climbed, I looked up and saw Shep hit in the shoulder. He was standing on a rock firing down into the wadi beyond and cartwheeled straight off the rock like in some Wild West film.

Jock Phillips and another of the guys, Dave Abbott, now had two wounded men to deal with. Jock was well trained, with weeks of experience in a hospital emergency ward back home, but here he had none of the kit now issued to SAS patrol medics. What he really needed was plasma drips and giving sets (the needle and tube connecting an emergency plasma drip to the arm), but all he could do was pack on shell dressings to stop the bleeding (the gaping hole in the side of Dave’s chest took six), jab in two ml units of Penicillin and make them comfortable on the sand. Super calm; there was never a better medic than Jock. A squat guy from Edinburgh, prone to quoting the poet Robbie Burns, we all knew we were in good hands.

Each man carried two syrettes of Omnopon (a Morphine derivative), taped on string round his neck, but Morphine can’t be used on wounds to the head, chest or stomach, so in this instance and unfortunately for him, Dave Haley did without.

I was extremely busy, my mind was working overtime. Taking a position high up at the front once Shep was lifted down, I kept firing at the muzzle flashes of the Arabs’ weapons and throwing grenades which the others passed up to me from below. I used deadly white phosphorus grenades to light the wadi ahead and to flush the Arabs out of cover, as the phosphorus blown into the air fell back onto them behind the rocks where they were hiding. High explosive American M26s, which were devastatingly lethal, did their work on the hard open ground. A ‘mixed grill’ we used to call this – a fearful combination of white phosphorous and fragmentation grenades – and if you did get caught up in this, you’d really be ‘well done’.

The explosions lit the night and boomed deafeningly in the narrow valley and the exchange of fire went on for a couple of hours. We were never too concerned about counter-attack because we held the steep wadi flanks. After the firing died down we lay there alert all night, until dawn at about five o’clock.

Come first light, several of us advanced down the wadi ahead. The Arabs had gone, leaving the fine silver sand and yellow rocks covered with blood. Another group of the guys picked up a trail of bloodstains which they followed up the hill above the wadi till they found an Arab who had somehow crawled up the steep slope and hidden under a rock. He was very badly wounded but refused to give up. He stupidly opened fire and they shot him dead where he lay.

In the wadi bottom, I looked round the scene of the battle. In their haste, the Arabs had left behind shoes, clothes and little bags of their belongings, including money and watches which they used as currency. Needless to say, these were pounced on by the chaps. We worked out there had been about 12 of them.

Behind us, in cover back up the wadi, our patrol signaller had been busy. As soon as early morning atmospheric conditions allowed, just before dawn, he had tapped out a signal to our base calling for helicopter casevac and just as it was light we heard the beating din of a navy Wessex from the Royal Navy carrier standing off Aden Port. Someone talked the pilot down on a Sarbe ground-to-air radio but the wadi was too narrow for the helicopter’s big rotors. The pilot pulled off-to circle round while we carried Dave and Shep as carefully as we could up the steep sides of the wadi. The sweat poured off us. The Wessex tried again, but was still unable to land. Finally the pilot hovered about 50 feet up, his rotor blades terribly close to the rocks. The loadmaster winched them in and the Wessex pulled away, on course for the hospital.

While all this was going on, the other half of our patrol picketed the heights above the wadi, just like the British Army had done high above the Khyber Pass. When we prepared to move on, I found the place where I had shot the first Arab. Typically, the others had dragged him off. The Arabs hated leaving their dead and I was certain I had killed him. The rock slab which had been behind him was covered in blood and there were five holes, in a good group, chipped deep into the stone. Clearly, my 7.62mm rounds had passed straight through the Arab. I found this a little unreal and looked closer to check what I was seeing was true. Strange as it might seem, I was euphoric – ecstatic even. I had done what I’d always set out to do: ‘close with and kill the enemy’. I also discovered the debris from the grenade that had failed to go off the night before. It was an old British type 36 grenade that had landed on a hard rock. The casing had been blown apart by the detonator but for some reason the main charge did not ignite. I had been lucky – that was a close one. I had survived.

I felt good, proud almost. I felt fit, I felt hard. This was the first time I had been in a contact and killed anyone. This euphoria was nothing to do with ending another person’s life. I felt good because I had not panicked, I had not let down my friends, I had reacted as a professional soldier trained by professional soldiers, and the excitement of the firelight had been nothing short of fantastic. Despite all of the many experiences I have had in my life, I can’t believe there’s anything which can equal the thrill of battle. I loved it.

This was no surprise. I was a very aggressive young man and I had found an arena that I could sublimate this aggression.

*    *    *

I’ve been told that there is a balance in everyone between what we learn from our families and what we are born with. If that’s so, I think I was given more than my fair share of extremes in both cases. I’m making no excuses for myself, but you need to understand my background.

I was born on 7 September 1942 at Number 15 Kenmore Street, Shettleston, in Glasgow. My father and grandfather were miners and life in Glasgow was rough. We had moved twice by the time I was five. First to Number 290 Carntyne Road in Carntyne, where three families shared our ‘house’, and then to Number 15 Lethamhill Road, Riddrie. This was a block of brick-built Victorian tenements which belonged to Barlinnie Prison and had been built as living quarters for prison warders. In 1947, they were empty and derelict and because life was so cramped in Carntyne Road, a number of families moved in to Lethamhill Road as squatters. There was no caring Department for Work and Pensions then and the council had nowhere else for us to go. Lethamhill Road was in sight of the prison so it was not long before the prison authorities called the police to evict us. My father was away, either in the army or in prison (or both) but my mother gathered up her family, me, my elder brother Billy, Molly who was only three and her youngest, Rose, who was only just born, and the police took us all off to the prison. They gave up with us soon enough, and let us stay in Lethamhill Road, but there aren’t many, even in Scotland, who have the dubious claim to have been locked up in a Glasgow jail at five years old.

Even though my father never showed me kindness or love, I idolised him nonetheless. To me, he represented manhood, as I knew it, within the culture in which we lived and it was not till later that I understood his life. He was a typical Glaswegian mixture of Catholic Scottish and Irish, and a miner. In the war, he was called up for the army which promptly sent him to a Welsh regiment. As a result, he hated the Welsh and was constantly in trouble. He was in the army until 1953 so I saw little of him till I was 10. He was either away from home in the barracks in Brecon, or in prison, sometimes in Barlinnie which had a military wing in those days. He had a cell overlooking Lethamhill Road which I could