Page 107 - QDG 2022

First sight of Beirut
Ambassador, senior members of the Lebanese government, the press and no doubt curious members of the public. So, the attached government liaison officer and nominal force commander, Lieutenant Colonel Cochrane, from the Irish Rangers, requested that we put on some form of ‘first parade’ so we could be inspected. After a couple of hours our drill was more or less presentable, albeit rather limited in scope.
We sailed on MV Sol Phryne which was an old, Cypriot registered ferry of a very basic type. Once we had parked up on the boat, it became apparent that, as a result of the coating of oil and petrol, the Cypriot dust had covered the wheels and tyres and the vehicles really looked like the age they were. Knack- ered from so little sleep (and a few too many ouzos) we all crashed out, feeling rather depressed that our arrival wouldn’t look as smart as we had all hoped. After a rather dismal night’s sleep, we came down to the vehicles ahead of docking to discover that the night guard had ‘appro- priated’ six large tins of black funnel paint from the ship’s store and the vehicles were looking immaculate! We finally arrived at the port of Beirut which was ominously littered with half sunk and damaged vessels. Did we look smart! We disembarked to the call of Lieutenant Vestey’s hunting horn and were ably led by Major Stewart. We pulled up in forma- tion on the large car park in front of the ferry terminal. Getting out was always difficult as the vehicle commanders had SLRs which were almost impossible to extract as one unsaddled.
But no one dropped their weapon nor were any magazines knocked off and we would have shown up the Guards with our impressive form up. The vehicles gleamed. Lieutenant Colonel Cochrane had announced on the ferry that he was going to take the parade in place of Major Stewart, as the ranking officer. Unfortunately, it was Major Stewart who had taken all the rehearsals. Colonel Cochrane marched up in front of us with his impressive green feather sticking
Parade on arrival at port du Liban
1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards 105
out of his bonnet and gave the order to present arms. This was conducted with aplomb and he saluted the British Ambassador, Sir David Roberts, who had come to greet us. After
Israel to the south and the Mediterra- nean Sea to the west. Beirut, the capital, is triangular shaped with the sea on two sides and the mountains on the third.
Damascus is two hours’ drive away and Tel Aviv four hours’ drive.
By way of background, the Allies defeated the Vichy French in Lebanon in 1943. It had been a French protec- torate since 1920, when the Ottoman Empire had been broken up. The country became an independent Christian state and pros- pered as the financial and trading centre of the Middle East. After the establishment in 1948 of the State of Israel, a flow of refugees migrated
south to Jordan and north to Lebanon, where they were welcomed by the Jorda- nians and Lebanese respectively. In 1970, the Jordanians expelled the Palestinians as they were using Jordan as a base to launch attacks against Israel. This coin- cided with two Arab Israeli wars which led to the population of Palestinians in Lebanon increasing to one million. Soon, the demographics changed and the country was no longer a Christian majority. This caused intense friction and civil war broke out in 1975. The power of the Palestine Liberation Organ- isation (PLO) became so strong that the government of Lebanon could no longer control the city and the country. Beirut itself was split into two, with the Chris- tians in East Beirut and the Muslims in the West. In 1982, as the PLO operations from Lebanon against Israel intensified, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) launched a full-blown attack. Within weeks, Beirut was completely under the guns of Israel. Through the intervention of multiple world agencies and with global support, an agreement was struck for the PLO to leave Beirut and they were offered shelter by the Algerian government. On the 14th September, the popular Chris- tian President Bashir Gemayel was
the inspection, Colonel
Cochrane and his feather
turned to face the Squadron,
bursting with pride. Where-
upon he gave the order to
shoulder arms. This was
also conducted with aplomb.
The problem then ensued
when we were told to order
arms. Unfortunately, this was
beyond our repertoire and
there was a performance of
impromptu juggling which
Sooty and Sweep would
have been proud of. But, like
on many occasions during
our tour, we survived admirably. This was greatly aided by the fact that straight after this debacle, whilst still standing to attention, there was a burst of machine gun fire across to our front. Forewarned and forearmed, not one person blinked an eyelid! It transpired that a Lebanese soldier had shot the tyres of a truck which was attempting to drive across the front of the parade. The journalists were impressed and much to the French contingent’s annoyance, the papers made much of the comparison between our arrival and theirs.
Lebanon is about half the size of Wales and borders Syria in the north and east,
Location of Beirut
Colonel Cochrane and his feather turned to face the Squadron, bursting with pride