Kuwait - Operation Vantage 1961
I was a Royal Marine serving in Aden in June 1961 with 45 Commando based in Little Aden.
Having spent three months in Aden already I was pretty well acclimatised to the heat and dry conditions. My expertise was as a Bren Light Machine gunner and support to my rifle section in Z Coy.
We were briefed for the Kuwait Op and was sent to tented lines in Khormaksor to wait for embarkation on service Brittania,s to Kuwait. The tents were without lockers etc just steel beds and a mattress. We spent a night waiting for our call forward, and was awakened by a lot of yelling from the lads who had been to the ablutions to get washed etc.
Evidently a Battalion of Ghurkas had been shipped in from somewhere and they were perched on the long rows of wash stands, using them as heads "Toilets for the army", and washing their lower parts with the taps. Eventally peace was restored when their officer demonstrated the correct usage.
Flying out was fine, gun on the rack and two boxes of magazines, not long up the gulf and slide down the chute. Great god even at midnight it was well over a 100 degrees and didn't bode well.
Our transport into the desert was a civilian bus, great on the road but up to the axles in the desert. Yomped to the Mittla ridge and dug in to damp sand that collapsed if you brushed the trench sides. No defence stores no support weapons, 3" mortars with few bombs. No wire little water.
We did have our Vickers sections though and they had reasonable ammo.
Three days later we were relieved and flew back to Bahrein ' refuelled and then to Aden in Dakotas. No Attack materialised thank God as tanks against bayonets wouldn't have been good.
I retired as an RSM in 1986, but never ever served anywhere hotter than Kuwait.
DL/Macclesfield/2011
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