A Good Series of Awards to Members of the S.A.S.

The following lot was withdrawn due to the recipient having been incorrectly identified:

The highly important and emotive campaign service group of three awarded to Private R. Cole, Parachute Regiment and Special Air Service Regiment, one of the gallant nine-strong S.A.S. team who so gallantly defended Mirbat against overwhelming odds in July 1972: as a machine-gunner on the roof of “BATT” house, he played a prominent role in the action and was also responsible for guiding in a rescue helicopter and a jet air strike

General Service 1962, 3 clasps, Radfan, Dhofar, Northern Ireland (23854666 Pte. R. Cole, Para); Omani General Service Medal, with Dhofar clasp; Omani As Sumood Medal, these last two unnamed as issued, mounted as worn, nearly extremely fine (3) £6000-8000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Good Series of Awards to Members of the S.A.S..

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23854666 Private Roger Alan Cole is verified as having participated in the defence of Mirbat in Major A. R. Tinson’s Awards of the Sultanate of Oman.

Few, if any, S.A.S. actions better portray the professionalism of the Regiment and the devastating damage just a handful of its men can inflict upon far superior enemy forces: surrounded by some 250 determined warriors of the Dhofar Liberation Front, the whole equipped with grenades and AK-47s (in addition to mortars, anti-tank rifles and rocket-launchers), this resilient nine-strong S.A.S. team, commanded by 23 year old Captain M. J. A. Kealy, in company with one Omani artilleryman, 30 odd Askaris from northern Oman (equipped with .303-inch rifles), and 25 men of the Dhofar Gendarmerie, managed to repulse a series of ferocious assaults over a period of two or three hours - by the time rescue arrived in the form of another S.A.S. Squadron, the terrorists had left behind 30 dead and 10 wounded, versus allied losses of four dead and three seriously wounded (many other terrorist casualties were carried off the battlefield by their retreating comrades).

Kealy received an immediate D.S.O., while his men added a D.C.M., an M.M. and a ‘mention’ to the Regiment’s hard-won tally of Honours and Awards. The ‘mention’ was a posthumous award to Sergeant Talaiyasi Labalaba, S.A.S., a Fijian, who, with exception of just one mortar, manned the only artillery piece in the allies’ armoury, a 1939-45 War-vintage 25-pounder, under a hail of fire until shot dead - the gun shield was found to riddled with bullet holes, while the barrel was depressed through 45 degrees, Labalaba having engaged the opposition over open sights (his last message over the radio said “Enemy now very close. I’ve been chinned but I’m alright”): the campaign to have his ‘mention’ changed to a posthumous V.C. continues.

At the time of the enemy attack on 19 July 1972, the coastal village of Mirbat was a ‘desolate barbed-wire enclave ... a huddle of flat-topped houses and a couple of ancient, mud-walled forts flanked on two sides by sea, forty miles from the provincial capital, Salalah. Children and insects were numerous, but not much else’, excepting, of course, as Tony Geraghty also describes in Who Dares Wins, the occasional terrorist mortar bomb that came sailing over the perimeter fence. The resident S.A.S. men, who were due to be airlifted out the following day, after three months of training work with local forces (and accordingly dubbed “Batmen” by their comrades), were possibly a little more relaxed than usual. Indeed as the enemy’s attack commenced in the early morning hours, Captain Kealy hastily donned a pair of flip-flops before ascending to the roof of “BATT” house to see what an earth was happening. It was, as Tony Geragthy so rightly observes, ‘the start of a battle as remarkable as that fought at Rorke’s Drift during the Zulu War.’

For his own part, Roger Cole was allocated to man one of the machine-guns on the roof of “BATT” house, a role he played to good effect, and one which is mentioned by Colonel Tony Jeapes in S.A.S. Operation Oman, but using the pseudonym “Chapman”, a conclusion arrived at by a process of elimination:

‘Chapman [Cole] was the first to see them and pointed out to Kealy a group of twenty men walking confidently towards the perimeter wire fence that surrounded the three sides of the town not bordered by the sea. The fort lay inside the north-eastern corner of the wire and within forty yards of it. Kealy studied the group through his binoculars. It was now light enough to see them clearly, but still he was uncertain. They could be some of the firquat returning, or a patrol the Gendarmerie might have sent out without telling him. They appeared too cool and confident to be adoo.

Suddenly all doubts were removed. At a signal, the men started to run into an extended line, raising their weapons to their shoulders. The crackle of small arms fire sounded paltry against the ear-splitting noise of the bursting shells. Chapman [Cole] did not wait for orders. Short sharp bursts of fire ripped through the haze like a succession of tiny comets into the groups of running men, the ricochets bouncing and arching gracefully into the air until they burnt out. As if it was a signal to begin, the whole corner near the fort erupted with the sound of machine-guns and rifles mixed with the explosion of shells. All the enemy’s fire seemed to be directed at the fort and the S.A.S. men looked on with disbelief as it disappeared from sight. A cloud of brown smoke and dust, lit up in spasms by the bright flashes of shell bursts against the walls, hid the fort entirely. Above it all sounded the vicious cracking explosions of the big gun by the fort as it fired its 25-pound shells point blank range at the wire forty yards in front of it.

The radio crackled but Kealy could not hear what it said above the racket. He thought it was the gun pit but could not be sure. In any case, Wignall and Chapman [Cole], their over-heated gun barrels sizzling in the wet, were shouting for more ammunition. Together with the uncommitted men, Corporal Reynolds and Trooper Tobin [who was killed], Kealy hauled up the heavy steel boxes from below until their shirts were as soaked from sweat and as from the steady monsoon drizzle.

The plain was now full of groups of ten to twelve men, sometimes in full view, sometimes hidden as they crossed a dip, all moving steadily towards the town. The battle raged around the fort, and keeping the G.P.M.G. firing in that direction, every other BATT weapon was brought to bear on the approaching infantry. But the enemy realized where most of the return fire came from and had ranged in on BATT house with machine-guns, the bullets thudding into the mud walls and sandbags or cracking viciously about the soldiers’ heads. But nobody had yet been hit and still the BATT machine-guns hammered back.’

At length air support arrived on the scene, Cole being instrumental in trying to guide in the first helicopter for the evacuation of wounded, and indeed in calling-in an air strike. Colonel Tony Jeapes continues:

‘The first helicopter tried to get in to evacuate Labalaba when Kealy and Tobin were still half way across on their journey to BATT house to the fort. Chapman [Cole] ran from the house to the usual landing pad on the beach two hundred yards away to receive it and since all seemed fairly quiet, threw out a green smoke grenade to signal that it was safe to land. But as the helicopter began its final approach the adoo began their second attack even more ferociously than before. Bullets began to crack about Chapman [Cole] and he identified at least one 12.7mm. heavy machine-gun firing towards the incoming helicopter.

His heart pounding, he fumbled in his belt for a red grenade and hurled it as far as he could. Immediately, a machine-gun began to rake the landing site. He paused a second to watch the helicopter sheering off into the mist, then turned and raced back up the beach to where a low wall provided cover. He crawled along this for fifty yards and when it was safe stood up and walked back to BATT house where he knew his medical skills would be needed.

A quarter of an hour later there was a shout from the roof that another aircraft could be heard above the mist. This time Chapman [Cole] selected a landing site only a hundred yards away from the house and protected by buildings. The noise of engines grew stronger as the pilot found a hole in the cloud and suddenly Chapman [Cole] saw it, a brown blop streaking towards him at roof top level coming in from the sea, not a helicopter at all but a Strikemaster. He clicked on his sarbe radio.

“Hullo, Strikemaster, this is Tiger four one. Enemy are north and east of fort. Over.”

“Roger, Tiger four one. I have visual. How far from the fort?”

“One hundred metres and closing,” he replied. This was the strike which prevented Kealy and Savesaki from being overrun.

Chapman [Cole] ran back up to the roof of BATT house and passed the sarbe to Bradshaw who took over control, directing the jets down the wire towards the fort and on to the enemy heavy support weapons on Jebel Ali.’

Shortly after this air strike reinforcements in the form of ‘G’ Squadron, S.A.S. arrived on the scene, and the enemy were quickly compelled to beat a hasty retreat. With these newly arrived men came three enemy prisoners who had been picked up on the beach by their helicopter, and we catch a final glimpse of Cole in Colonel Jeapes’ account, as he is appointed to the task of interrogating them.

Jeapes again:

‘Perhaps the best man to sum up the battle of Mirbat is the Commanding Officer of the Northern Frontier Regiment. Having visited the scene immediately after the battle, he concluded his despatch:

It may appear that an unusually large number of names have been recorded. This is because there were, on 19 July, an unusually large number of gallant actions.’

Withdrawn