In a bitter cold winter from 1946 to 1947, Lieutenant Mike Walsh spent his first posting on a platoon detachment in the hills of Northern Italy. The 1st Battalion, King’s Royal Rifle Corps occupied the area with the intention of blocking any of Tito’s partisans from seizing Trieste. They were on a steady rotation between barracks and the field, but the barracks were not much better for they lacked the amenities of reliable water and electricity. As Lieutenant Mills noted in the Chronicle, “The water came on and went off with a whimsical indifference to the time of day or night, and a candle was the standard equipment for an evening’s reading.” He later led the battalion motorcycle team in an Inter-Regimental Scramble against the Queen’s Bays in April. The course traversed “mud, hair-pin bends, speed stretches and plenty of bumps,” with a portion of the course around the most of the Palmanova.
From there he went to the 2d Battalion and then off to Malaya for two years during the Emergency. He was surprised by a visit from Major Powell, also posted out from the 60th, who visited the FARELF Training Center in Ketatinggi where Walsh was in charge of the Wireless / Telegraphy Wing. He returned from the jungle to the 2d Battalion and eventually found his home not in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, but in the Parachute Regiment. As a captain, he joined A Company, 3 Para as their second-in-command.
CYPRUS
Both 1st and 3d Battalions flew to Cyprus to prepared to drop into Jordan should the growing situation there escalate. It would have been one of the first major airlifts in the post-war years and required great haste to get to the staging area from England. They crammed into Nimrods with extreme discomfort, but crammed in nonetheless. All laced in and ready to go, Mike was then second-in-command of A Company when the commander approached him with the devastating news that Mike was going to stay behind to look after the families. He knew no argument could change his fate, and the battalion departed while he remained to assist the families without proper affordances for such a rapid deployment. He stayed behind with the small rear party and never forgot when then paymaster ordered the locks to be smashed and coal to be issued to the families, which never was resolved in the books.
The situation in Jordan had died down by the time Mike joined his company again on Cyprus. Major Gordon-Wilson had departed for Joint Services Staff College, so Mike was graced with command of A Company in February 1956. The first months on the island were marked by a sharp cold and takeover of guard duties at a detainee camp. In the chilly rain of March and April it was a popular detachment because of the hot showers, films, and ‘the occasional glimpse of a pretty Greek girl visiting detainees.’ The biggest operational success for the company was when Private Briggs discovered a cache of weapons, ammunition and clothes buried in a hole in the roots of a tree. He received a Brigade Commander’s Commendation which sparked some envious or suspicious members of the neighboring battalion to speculate that Mike Walsh had brought in arms from England for his company to conveniently find. It was part of the escalation of the rivalry between 1 and 3 Para which became so severe that it required a barbed wire partition between the two battalions.
After their tour at the detention camp, the weather finally warmed in spring and their scene shifted to Nicosia after the Greek-Turkish riots. For three or four days at the end of April, the company enforced curfew and patrolled the ‘more fashionable part of the walled city.’ Major Walsh formed such a good relationship with the press that when a bomb was thrown in Metaxes Square, there was worldwide coverage for spectacular publicity. When they had the opportunity to relax on the coast, they unwound with massive barbeques and swimming in the lush ocean.
From Nicosia, the company went off on operations in the Troodos to chase terrorists and set roadblocks during demanding cordon and search operations across the forested mountain areas that had rarely seen British people. That summer, there was a sharp increase in EOKA activity and an operation “Lucky Alphonse” commenced. Mike later recalled, “If ever an operation was misnamed, that was it.”
With the neighboring Commando unit, 3 Para left camp at midnight under blackout conditions. The laced around steep mountain roads to arrive into position near Kykko by dawn. Their position was a ridge with pine forests sitting in a valley to one side and a steep gully on the other. They were to patrol the trails in this area, set ambushes, and shoot on sight.
After C Company found a small stash of equipment and notebooks that proved to belong to Grivas, efforts were doubled and the battalion doubled their efforts with the addition of other regiments in the area bent on capturing Grivas. They searched every ‘blooming yard’ of the expansive forest. The hunt continued for days, but Grivas who was forever elusive and his presumed presence in the cordoned area led the Paras to various false alarms and incidents of friendly fire accidents.
When the EOKA mortars pummeled the former position, they thought Grivas might be in, it seemed they had moved permanently south. The forest fire that ensued was conveniently blamed on the mortar fire, but Grivas would later claim it was his doing.
The morning after the fire took hold of the dry woods, Mike and his second-in-command were driving along a mountain track above the fire, destined for a court inquiry over a dead Norfolk Regiment soldier. They approached a scout car blocking the road which had become engulfed in smoke. Fire fighters attempted to beat back the flames but the fire quickly leapt up the hill at an incredible forty miles an hour. A dozen men perished immediately and other leapt from vehicles scrambling for an escape. Mike dashed and stumbled downhill, through the flames, while his second-in-command and driver fled uphill. The latter two died in the raging fire. By crawling into a small ditch, Mike made it out alive, but with severe burns. That concluded “Lucky Alphonse” and he finished his time in Nicosia in the hospital. It was actually Jacko, commanding the rival 1 Para to which A Company had been briefly attached, who showed great compassion for Walsh and helped him exit the hospital sooner to return to his company.
At the beginning of August, the battalion was recalled to camp in the United Kingdom for parachute training. They were to carry out three practice drops and on battalion exercise in a matter of ten days. The commanding officer granted everyone 48 hours leave trusting they would return promptly and not fail the jumps. He was very quiet about why such a sudden change was occurring, but it was imperative they complete the training immediately. ‘Not a single chap was absent,” recalled Crook.
SUEZ
At the start of September, it became clear why the paras were recalled for such urgent training. They flew back to Nicosia on a Sunday with order to plan for a battalion scale airborne operation. Being the most experienced, best trained, and most adaptable, 3 Para was chosen to be the lead element. They began practicing protecting an airfield, storming pillboxes, and most importantly – water discipline. When Walsh finally saw the operation plans, he found that his A Company was going to be responsible for taking the western end of El Gamil airfield with the control tower buildings, all dominated by one stout pillbox at the end of the runway covered with dark objects that were likely obstacles or mines. After taking the buildings, he was to take the stone bridge at the west end of the field by demolition. In the face of minimal intelligence, which the operations officer described as ‘appalling and negligible,’ his instruction was simply, “Get in there somehow, Mike,” which left much to be negotiated upon landing in the flat, sandy expanse.
*
Walsh stood at the number one position in the door watching in the early dawn light the warships on course in the sea below. In the interior of the plane, he admired those who managed to sleep on their way over. He also admired the pilots who held their course facing directly into the sun. He wondered just how skilled they would be able to navigate a drop onto the incredibly narrow airstrip where there would be little or no room for error in dropping the sticks. The red light illuminated and he took a step into the doorframe. Dark bursts of flak came uncomfortably close to the planes and below was only the ocean with no land in sight. The light switched to green and the Major was out the door, into the slipstream, and drifted down into a heap on a soft patch of sand. The crackling of small arms whipping overhead sounded as he unbuckled and untangled himself, grabbed his Sterling submachine gun, and moved out with the paras who were doing exactly as they had trained moving to their objectives.
The dark objects on the aerial photographs turned out to be 40-gallon oil drums scattered across the airstrip as an anti-aircraft measure. They proved to be useful for cover for one man in moving toward the pillbox at the end of the strip. A patrol from Sergeant Legg took the control tower buildings with remarkable ease, where they found Private Pugsley suspended in one of the only two palm trees outside. They charged past him with guns blazing as he dangled eight feet from the ground muttering about his poor luck. then and then turned for the pillbox on the west end.
The machine gun nestled in the dark concrete slit was sweeping the entire drop zone. Mike sent for 1 Platoon under Peter Coates to take care of it. It was four hundred yards away across flat sand and was a daunting objective for even the most daring paratrooper. The Major resorted to watching his men bound across the field section by section exactly as they had trained in Cyprus. They were cool and confident in their approach.
He watched Coates call up his 3.5” rocket launcher team under Private Clements. They fired a shot that appeared perfect until it bounced short and whizzed up over the pillbox. They reloaded, took aim a second time, and hit the structure, but it from his vantage point, Mike could not tell if it hit beside the aperture or inside. The dust cleared and the gun remained silent. They killed two of the occupants and took nine prisoners. Within half an hour, the airfield was clear and only a single self-propelled gun harassed them after that, but the shells had little effect in the soft sand.
With the threat to the west eliminated, Walsh turned to the narrow approach up to Port Said. The thin strip of land had water on either side that gave way from desert to a swampy sewage farm and behind that a cemetery that would cause real trouble. There were rows of Christian and Moslem gravestones which people could hide behind and the paratroopers and Egyptians popped out from behind them to fire at each other. A bombardment by the Fleet Air Arm had unearthed a number of bodies which lay exposed in the cemetery. “In the middle of this and our not inconsiderable fire-fight came a funeral party all wailing away. It really was a bit surreal,” noted Paul Crook.
After the cemetery was clear, Mike, with the battalion second-in-command Dennis Beckett, conferred with the Colonel among the tombstones. They faced open country beyond the cemetery and then a block of flats with a smattering of machine gun nests. A sniper found the officers convferring at the gate and a few well-placed shots sent them ducking. Mike returned fire with his Sterling, which promptly jammed, and feeling very vulnerable he ran to Dennis who had smartly taken cover.
*
By the end of the afternoon, when direct fire on the airfield was eliminated, the French brought in the first Dakota to evacuate casualties. They had been well cared for in the control tower building under Sandy Cavanaugh, who himself had taken shrapnel to the eye. Getting the casualties out of fire and back to the airfield had been its own challenge due to lack of transports, but the troopers managed to rip off a door and place it over the hood of a vehicle for a rudimentary ambulance.
The Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm had done a fantastic job delivering impressive support despite being in the air for only a short time. It was rumored that after that and the second drop that either the Egyptian commandant or the Port Said commandant was requesting a cease fire.
*
The next morning, Walsh was delighted to watch the Royal Marines arrive by landing craft. They covered the assault with machine gun fire as they trundled inland in their LVTs. Talk of Russian volunteers and air reinforcements from Russia via Syria prompted orders for A Company to prepare defensive positions at El Tina a few miles behind the front. They deployed along a narrow strip astride the Sweetwater Canal between the canal and a railway. Mike and his second-in-command, Peter Kingston, spent a long day placing and digging positions before retiring to the Canal Company house which served as A Company headquarters. They had slept so little in the past few days they both retired to the double bed which was a luxurious spring mattress on brass frame.
It was not long before they were rudely awoken by an approaching jeep. The deputy commander of the Brigade entered the room along with the Brigade Major and a ‘delightful and debonair’ French girl who was a correspondent who saw the two men in bed and remarked, “How very strange!”
A week passed with little more action and the battalion returned to Cyprus where they were met only by the military police looking for weapons. The French had evidently made it back with some which they sold to EOKA members. The commanding officer was furious, for his men would do no such thing even if they did have weapons (which they did) and quickly put a stop to the unwelcome return.
After both operations and on the eve of 1957, Mike was disappointed that he had not yet gotten to attend staff college. This sinking feeling remained until he received a call at the end of the year that he was to head to Australia as a staff captain. He spent 1958 with the British Defence Staff and attended the Australian Army Staff College. With that experience, he was able to return to England as a brigade major for the 44th T.A. Parachute Brigade and then as a company commander and Parachute Regiment Representative at Sandhurst. He finally returned to regimental soldier in 1964 after attending the Joint Services Staff College. He took command of the 1st Battalion then stationed in Aldershot. Only a few months into his command, they were warned of an emergency tour to cover the final withdrawal of British Forces from Aden.
RADFAN
Following the Kuwait intervention, it was decided to keep in Bahrain a parachute battalion, squadron of Hunter aircraft, and three Beverly transports in case a quick drop into Kuwait became necessary. Each parachute battalion spent a year in Bahrain to accommodate this and they built a permanent camp, Jabulani, between Dubai and Abu Dahbi. Garrison life was adequately busy with one company always on training operations in the Trucial States.
At the start of 1964, the changeover between battalions left 2 Para under their second-in-command and only A Company of 3 Para under Walsh available to compile a composite force for an emergency drop into Zanzibar. The 3 Para commander, still in England, was apparently furious that the underlings were going to carry on without their masters. Walsh’s company was ready to fly that evening, staging in Aden and off to Nairobi. They planned to drop and march through a swamp to take control of Zanzibar. The whole ordeal ‘would have been quite difficult, but not impossible,’ but the mission never came and soon they received news of unrest in the Aden territory.
The reason and aim of what their ultimate mission was in Radfan was very much unclear, but they had their orders and following the initial assault by B Company, the battalion marched out across a valley up into high ground. In their haste to make it to their objective, a sheer cliff on which the Bakri villages were, they departed without helicopter support and only reconnaissance scouts from 653 Squadron. It was fascinating country with terraces everywhere across the sharp landscape of steep gorges of rock that burned hot to the touch in the direct sun. Unfortunately, the roads and tracks were too treacherous for vehicles, so a planned land rover movement was nixed as well. All movement was to be on foot.
Rifle companies were to switch off each day – one carrying water and ammunition and the other as a protection force. They moved by night over the course of two nights. The second night, the porter duty fell to A Company. Major Walsh dispatched only Lieutenant Pike’s platoon to go ahead at last light to get behind the enemy. Joining the porters to take on an eighty or niney pound load, Walsh estimated whether ammunition or water would be heavier and chose a jerry can of water on an A-frame. As he trudged up sharp ridges, the jerry can slowly leaked down his back and legs, swaying about and saturating him. He regretted the choice and wished he had taken ammunition instead.
There had been almost no sign of tribesmen across the strand land, but Pike’s patrol from A Company came in on the radio to report he had engaged some enemy and were in a running fight. The battalion group finally caught up to him above the ‘vast gorges of Hajib escarpment.’ They had taken half of the Bakri Ridge without incident except for Pike’s patrol. Along the way, they found several lots of weapons from World War I vintage British Lee-Enfields to antique French Lebel rifles.
After a considerable show from air operations, the Paras planned their next advance to display to the tribesmen that nowhere was safe if they continued to fight. A Company was to secure the tip of Arnold’s Ridge (aptly named after the anti-tank platoon Company Sergeant Major) after passing through two villages in daylight. C Company approached the villages first and soon it became a battalion battle to break through with the help of Hunters from above. Bloodstains across the dry rock leading to escape tunnels indicated they inflicted a number of casualties, but most had fled and left the Paras in possession of the tip of the ridge - Arnold’s Spur.
After May 24th, they prepared to descend 3200 feet down from the ridge into the Dhubsan. Under cover of machine guns, the companies roped down the cliff face and A Company was first to enter the village of Bayn Al Gidr. The whole basin appeared to be deserted. They had advanced 1500 yards when the commanding officers, scouting ahead by helicopter, was shot down. A four hour engagement commenced with tribesmen positioned across high ground that proved difficult to deal with. There were at least six machine guns firing down on the group simultaneously and the Royal Marine’s X Company that had come under command of 3 Para could not move further than 600 yards. A Company swept around to the left while artillery and nimble Hunter aircraft helped disperse the enemy force. It was quiet again by 1400 hours and 3 Para had control of the Wadi Dhubsan. That night, everyone was sufficiently exhausted and still wondering what exactly they were doing in Radfan. They ultimately withdrew back to the top of the spur and the group was lifted straight back to where they came from.
ADEN
Following suit of what seemed to be all his pervious operations, Mike had just taken over 1 Para when they were warned for an emergency tour to cover the final withdrawal of British forces from Aden. On May 31st, 1967 the local terrorist organization called a general strike to disrupt and create an excuse to create havoc for the Security Forces. With orders to take up defensive positions in Sheikh Othman and Mansoura, Colonel Walsh dispersed his troops throughout the area and commenced operations at 0200 on what became known as the ‘Glorioius First of June.’
After a patrol was grenaded outside the main Mosque, all observation posts began taking concentrated fire, some from as little as fifty yards away. Mike attempted to visit the patrol at the Police Station, but even in an armored car was taking too much fire to proceed. The firefight continue throughout the daylight hours and was engaging enough that the paras ran low on ammunition and were scrounging for rounds for belt fed machine guns. The Colonel visited all posts that he could throughout the day in his Rover vehicle and was subjected to several bouts of fire that seemed not to phase him. By the end of the day, the situation had stabilized and the paras succeeded in preventing a takeover of the town.
By June 5th, the battalion seemed to have returned to some normalcy until just before midday when there was a major attack on the Police Station. Walsh dispatched a platoon and called an O Group. He had news of the Israeli invasion of the Sinai and how this might influence their position in Aden. He speculated that Sheikh Othman would be troublesome and how the battalion might move to dominate the area and keep the road north open. He had previously reconnoitered the abandoned Mission Hospital near Grenade Corner with his second in command, Joe Starling. The pair had dressed as private soldiers of the East Anglian Regiment so as not to draw attention and set off in a 4-tonner for the Hospital. In a swift patrol, kept tight by the sergeant major who took great delight in bossing the officers around, they had a chance to examine the Hospital and location.
It was decided that the Mission Hospital was a suitable company base and with clearance from the brigade commander, they simply took it, with C Company occupying. Sandbagging started after dark and they christened it “Fort Walsh.” Within 48 hours, the hospital had been transformed, cleaned up, and tactical headquarters was on the ground floor in the old consultant’s office. The engineers even restored the water supply and electrical.
*
The conclusion of the Six Day War was the catalyst for Arab unrest, and the situation in Aden started when a patrol took fire, killing a company commander and wounding others, and uncertain news got to Champion Lines that the Crater was taken and rumors began flying. Walsh’s battalion stood too, filled more sand bags all night long, and ran up and down in 4-tonners so that by dawn, they had built an impressive sandbag protection along their observation posts.
In Champion Lines, the Federal National Guard staged an inter-tribal mutiny and heavy fire broke out at the battalion main base. Colonel Walsh immediately ordered that no fire was to be returned in an effort to mitigate the situation as much as possible. He was willing to let the two opposing terrorist groups fight among themselves than provoke them further with British intervention. “No firing” was an unpopular and frustrating order for those actively subjected to fire, but the disciplined members of 1 Para obliged. Mike and his officers raced around to ensure every man was under cover and withholding fire. No sooner had Mike ordered for men to stay in place when he was off to visit positions around the perimeter to talk and joke with his men.
The South Arabian Federal Government requested a company secure the armory there and protect the British personnel besieged in the barracks. Walsh had under his command an additional company from the King’s Own Border Regiment. That day, the company under David Miller happened to the one responsible for internal security and Walsh gave one of the most difficult orders he had ever had to give. He wanted the Border company to race across 600 yards to Champion Lines in open 4-tonners. Miller very bravely drove two platoons straight out of camp across the open desert into Champion Lines taking casualties, but by prompt and quick action got in and disarmed the mutiny situation and brought things under control.
By the end of the day, 22 soldiers had been killed and 31 wounded. The Crater was lost to the terrorists and the Mayor of Aden had admitted support for the terrorist group FLOSY. The situation showed no signs of improvement and Starling recalled, “It was tragic to see truckloads of ashen faced FLOSY supporters being taken into the desert (and hence outside the area still controlled by the British) and to hear the long bursts of machine gun fire as they were executed by the NLF. A clandestine patrol from 1 PARA launched from Dar Said reported mass graves being dug up by some scavenging dogs who fed on the corpses.”
After the beginning of the collapse of the federal government in September, the NLF and FLOSY prepared for a final confrontation in November and it was time for 1 Para to withdraw. The plan was to evacuate Sheikh Othman in two stages: first to a defense line across the marshes which included, as Walsh recalled, 'those funny windmills' to stay out of direct small arms fire and stage two was the handover to 42 Commando. On November 29th after seven months of tension, their operations in Area North concluded in a peaceful handover that would be the end of British government and 128 years of colonial rule in Aden. Colonel Walsh received a well-earned Distinguished Service Order for the period in which his men followed him with confidence when they felt their ‘government had made a farce of their every effort.’