Page 123 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
of treaties going back to the early nineteenth century, intended at the time to guarantee its place in the protective cordon around India. This placed the British in effective charge of Oman’s foreign, defence and fiscal policy, with its small army officered largely by former British Officers contracted directly to the Sultan and commanding a mixture of Arab and Baluchi troops. This relationship was intensified in the 1950s thanks to Oman’s geopolitical position, dominating the southern shores of the Straits of Hormuz and prospects of oil wealth of her own. Said Bin Taimur was determined to relieve Oman of Britain’s financial control and from his accession in 1932 ran an austerity programme like no other, restricting public spending to almost zero and in doing so, keeping his country in the dark ages; in 1957 there were just two small hospitals in the whole of Oman – a country the size of Great Britain – just two secular secondary schools and three miles of metalled road, all in or around Muscat. Outside this small zone, and the RAF bases at Salalah and Masirah Island, Said’s subjects were cut off from the world in the most crushing poverty and medieval diseases such as leprosy were still prevalent in parts of the interior.
Given Said’s particular style of rule, it seems paradoxical that the Sultan was so insistent that his son, Qaboos bin Said, should gain a degree of Western education and knowledge of government.
Qaboos, the Sultan’s only son, arrived in England in 1957 aged just sixteen on his first trip outside his home country. After two years of sixth-form study and work on his English (a language he came to speak with eloquence), Qaboos spent what was, purportedly, an unhappy two years at Sandhurst followed by a tour as a Second Lieutenant with the Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) in Germany. After travelling extensively in the UK, observing various aspects of national and local government in action, he returned home in 1965 – on his father’s orders.
The Oman that Qaboos had left eight years earlier was very similar to what he arrived back to – a comparatively underdeveloped country in the Middle East, that his father was desperate to keep firmly in the past, while various tribal leaders attempted to depose him and seize power. But throughout the 1950s, with Saudi encour- agement, tribesmen in the north rallied around the figurehead of Imam Ghalib bin Ali – the traditional ruler of the country’s interior – seizing control of a large part of northern Oman and cutting off Muscat on the coast from the areas that were being prospected for oil.
Then, in 1962 a dissatisfied tribal leader, Musallam bin Nufl, formed the Dhofar Liberation Movement and obtained arms and vehicles from Saudi Arabia to battle any form of modern- isation in Oman. In the same year, the DLF conducted sabotage operations on the British air base at Salalah, ambushing oil industry vehicles, government posts and other commercial targets. It took four years and extensive British military intervention, including the aforementioned Cameronians, 22 SAS and some major bombing by the RAF to put this down. This was supported by a long-term agreement with London by which British Army officers on attachment would hold almost every command appointment above platoon level within the new Sultan’s Armed Forces (SAF), the Commander, Sultan’s Armed Forces (CSAF) being a serving British Colonel (later raised to Brigadier, then Major General).
Returning in 1965, Qaboos witnessed a far more dangerous insurgency gaining power. Increasingly dominated by Communists, backed by the USSR and China, this danger was erupting from Dhofar, in southern Oman. The Sultan, still unwilling to spend adequately even on the SAF, believed that the rebellion could be crushed through terror alone. Meanwhile, kept under virtual house arrest near his father’s palace in Salalah, Qaboos observed all this with growing horror.
In 1966, events took a decidedly sinister turn. Members of the ‘Dhofar Force’, a small locally recruited irregular unit that had been formed to maintain order in the region, attempted to assassinate the Sultan. Said Bin Taimur was forced to retire to the safety of his palace in Salalah – he was never seen in public again. This was a bold and necessary move, but it only added to the rumours that were already running rampant in Dhofar – that the British were running Oman through a “phantom” Sultan. From the early days of the rebellion, various Nationalists with Communist organisations in the neighbouring Aden protec- torate were also involved. Britain’s withdrawal from Aden, in 1967, gave the insurgents a new vigour and complexion. The DLF took on a more Marxist-Leninist ideological stance which, in turn, attracted favourable attention from the USSR and China both of which provided conceptual, financial, and military support.
By 1968 the SAF were massively under strength with only one thousand men in Dhofar and all were poorly equipped leaving them vulnerable and unable to defend the airport at Salalah adequately. This was a door the British could not afford to leave ajar, which forced the deployment of elements of
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