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| Aden Emergency | ||||||||
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| Part of theCold War, theArab Cold War, and thedecolonization of Asia | ||||||||
 The location of the Aden Protectorate | ||||||||
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| Belligerents | ||||||||
 NLF |  FLOSYSupported by:  United Arab Republic | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
 Harold Wilson Michael Le Fanu Michael Beetham Colin Campbell Mitchell | Qahtan al-ShaabiJarallah Omar | Abdullah al-AsnagGamal Abdel Nasser | ||||||
| Units involved | ||||||||
 Federal Regular ArmyHadhrami Bedouin Legion [ar] | Guerrilla fighters | |||||||
| Strength | ||||||||
| 30,000 at peak[1] (3,500 in November 1967)[2] 15,000federal troops[3] | 26,000 fighters[4] | |||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||
| British Army: 90–92 killed 510 wounded[5][3] Federal Regular Army: 17 killed 58 wounded | 382 killed 1,714 wounded[3] | |||||||
| Total: 2,096 casualties[6] | ||||||||
TheAden Emergency, also known as the14 October Revolution (Arabic:ثورة 14 أكتوبر,romanized: Thawrat 14 ʾUktūbar,lit. '14th October Revolution') or as theRadfan Uprising, was an armed rebellion by theNational Liberation Front (NLF) and theFront for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY) against theFederation of South Arabia, aBritish Protectorate of theUnited Kingdom, which led to the proclamation of thePeople's Republic of South Yemen.
Partly inspired byGamal Abdel Nasser'span-Arab nationalism, it began on 14 October 1963 with the throwing of a grenade at a gathering of British officials atAden Airport. Astate of emergency was then declared in the BritishCrown colony ofAden and its hinterland, theAden Protectorate. The emergency escalated in 1967 and hastened the end of British rule in the territory which had begun in 1839.
Aden was originally of interest to Britain as an anti-piracy station to protect shipping on the routes toBritish India. With the opening of theSuez Canal in 1869, it further served as a coaling station. Over the period since the annexation of Aden, the British had signed many protection treaties with the emirs of the inland to secure British rule over the area. Following theindependence of India in 1947, Aden became less important to the United Kingdom.
The Emergency was precipitated in large part by a wave ofArab nationalism spreading to the Arabian Peninsula and stemming largely from thesocialist andpan-Arabist doctrines of Egyptian leaderGamel Abdel Nasser. TheBritish,French andIsraeli forces thathad invaded Egypt following Nasser'snationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 had been forced to withdraw following intervention from both the United States and the Soviet Union.
Nasser enjoyed only limited success in spreading his pan-Arabist doctrines through theArab world, with his 1958 attempt to unify Egypt and Syria as theUnited Arab Republic collapsing in failure three years later. A perceived anti-colonial uprising in Aden in 1963 provided another potential opportunity for his doctrines, though it is not clear to what extent Nasser directly incited the revolt in Aden, as opposed to the Yemeni guerrilla groups drawing inspiration from Nasser's pan-Arabist ideas but acting independently themselves.[citation needed]
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There were a number of different nationalist groups fighting the British. Often, they fought each other. The most well known groups are:[7]
1. The South Arabian League (S.A.L.)
2. TheFront for the Liberation of South Yemen (F.L.O.S.Y.)
3. The Organization for the Liberation of the Occupied South (O.L.O.S.)
4. The People's Liberation Party (P.L.P.)
5. TheNational Liberation Front (N.L.F.)
Among the main players, the S.A.L. was backed bySaudi Arabia, the F.L.O.S.Y. byEgypt and theAden Trade Unions. All the major groups were based in Yemen, and they regularly combined or broke up with other groups. For instance, S.A.L joined with P.S.P. to become O.L.O.S. in 1965, and then broke away in 1966. The N.L.F. joined with O.L.O.S. in January 1966 to form F.L.O.S.Y. then broke away in December 1966. Such movement was quite common all through the war.[7]
Hostilities started on 10 December 1963, with an NLFgrenade attack against British High Commissioner of AdenSir Kennedy Trevaskis, which took place as he arrived at Khormaksar Airport to catch a London-bound flight. The grenade killed the High Commissioner's adviser and a woman, and injured fifty other people. On that day, a state of emergency was declared in Aden.
The NLF and FLOSY began a campaign against British forces in Aden, relying largely on grenade attacks. One such attack was carried out againstRAF Khormaksar during achildren's party, killing a girl and wounding four children.
The guerrilla attacks largely focused on killing off-duty British officers and policemen. Much of the violence was carried out inCrater, the old Arab quarter of Aden. British forces attempted to intercept weapons being smuggled into Crater by the NLF and FLOSY on the Dhala road, but their efforts met with little success. Despite taking a toll on British forces, the death toll among rebels was far higher, largely due to inter-factional fighting among different rebel groups.
In 1964 the British24th Infantry Brigade arrived to conduct land operations. It remained in Aden and the Aden Protectorate until November 1967.
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By 1965, the RAF stationRAF Khormaksar was operating nine squadrons, including transport units with helicopters and a number ofHawker Hunter fighter bomber aircraft. These were called in by the army for attacks on rebel positions in which they would use60-pound high explosive rockets and their30 mm ADEN cannon.
On 19–20 January 1967, the NLF provokedstreet riots in Aden. After the Aden police lost control, British High Commissioner Sir Richard Turnbull deployed British troops to crush the riots. As soon as the NLF riots were crushed, pro-FLOSY rioters took to the streets. Fighting between British forces and pro-guerrilla rioters lasted into February. British forces opened fire 40 times, and during that period there were 60 grenade and shooting attacks against British forces, including the destruction of anAden AirwaysDouglas DC-3, which was bombed in mid-air, killing all the people on board.
At one point toward the end of the rebellion in early 1967 the NLF killed at least 35 members of FLOSY in 32 days. The FLOSY guerrillas first asked the British for protection, and then 80 actually flew to the UK using the British passports they had as citizens of a British Colony.[7]
The emergency was further exacerbated by theSix-Day War in June 1967.Nasser claimed that the British had helped Israel in the war, and this led to amutiny by hundreds of soldiers in theSouth Arabian Federation Army on June 20, which also spread to theAden Armed Police. The mutineers killed 22 British soldiers and shot down a helicopter (The pilot had to abandon take off from a ledge near Crater, Aden after being hit in the knee by a bullet. The Sioux crashed and burnt out but all three occupants escaped), and as a result, Crater was occupied by rebel forces.
Concerns were heightened regarding the ability to give sufficient security to British families in the midst of the increased violence, resulting in evacuation plans for families being sped up considerably.
Following the mutiny, all British forces werewithdrawn from Crater, whileRoyal Marines of45 Commando took up sniping positions on the high ground and killed 10 armed Arab fighters. However, Crater remained occupied by an estimated 400 Arab fighters. NLF and FLOSY fighters then took to the streets and engaged in gun battles, while arson, looting, and murder was also common. British forces blocked off the two main entrances to Crater. They came under sniper fire from an Ottoman fort on Sira island, but the snipers were silenced by a shell from an armoured car. Order was restored in July 1967, when the 1stArgyll and Sutherland Highlanders entered Crater under the command ofLt. Col.Colin Campbell Mitchell and managed to occupy the entire district overnight with no casualties.
Nevertheless, repeated guerrilla attacks by the NLF soon resumed against British forces, causing the British to leave Aden by the end of November 1967, earlier than had been planned by British Prime MinisterHarold Wilson and without an agreement on the succeeding governance, effectively abandoning the South Arabian government.
On 30 November 1967 theFederation of South Arabia ceased to exist when thePeople's Republic of Southern Yemen was proclaimed. In 1967 Israel defeated Egypt in theSix-Day War thus obliging Egypt to evacuate its troops from Yemen. FLOSY, now without any military support from its Egyptian ally, continued fighting the NLF. However FLOSY's fate was sealed when the NLF managed to persuade the Yemen's Federal army to join the fight against FLOSY. On 7 November 1967 FLOSY tried to attack afederal army base but the army defeated FLOSY with the NLF's help, inflicting heavy losses on FLOSY. After the defeat FLOSY´s fighting force disbanded although some cadres and leaders remained outside the country.[8] Most of the opposing leaders reconciled by 1968, in the aftermath of a final royalist siege of San'a'.
British military casualties in the period 1963 to 1967 were 90 to 92 killed[9] and 510 wounded. British civilian deaths were 17. Local government forces lost 17 killed and 58 wounded. Casualties among the rebel forces stood at 382 killed and 1,714 wounded.[5][3]
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