I had two options when I left South Africa. One was a three-year short-term engagement as training officer at 22 SAS and the other was to join David W at KMS, a private military company (PMC) based in London. Initially KMS had more to offer in the long term than rejoining the British Army so I accepted their offer. I had a few months between leaving the SADF and joining KMS so my family and I returned to New Zealand and we stayed with relatives in Christchurch. I took a job as a wool packer at a warehouse in Christchurch and Cecilia worked as a chambermaid at one of the large hotels. We needed the money.
I must admit that wool packing is one of the hardest physical jobs I have ever had. Wool packing involves packing wool into large hessian bags; compressing the wool on a press; weighing the bag; and then sewing it up. It may sound relatively simple to do but it was physically extremely demanding. I was relieved when the New Year dawned and I could set off to London to join KMS in January 1982.
KMS had been set up by Major David W, a former 22 SAS squadron commander, and it provided security services to a number of eminent people. I was to meet several famous and powerful people while working for KMS. These included the Aga Khan; Sheikh Yamani, the Saudi oil minister; and David Stirling, the founder of the British SAS. The company also provided logistical support for the Sultan of Oman’s Special Forces (SSF), which was based in Dhofar Province in the south of Oman. This logistics support comprised everything that SSF could need from pencils to machine guns, Land Rovers and boats. KMS also recruited all the European officers and some senior NCOs for this Special Force regiment. There was certainly never a dull moment while I worked with KMS.
I went on a management visit to one of the close protection teams looking after Sheikh Yamani at his villa in Sardinia. Being a close protection officer is certainly an interesting way of life, but you can only provide the level of protection that the client wants. Sheikh Yamani was the Saudi oil minister from 1962 to 1986 and during that time he had survived kidnapping by Carlos ‘The Jackal’ at an OPEC conference on 21 December 1975 in Vienna, Austria. His close protection team was very professional and was composed of former members of British Special Forces. At the time of my visit he had hired a small and discreet car. Blending into the environment was certainly a sensible decision; however, as the car was only two-door this meant that the two armed bodyguards sat in the back of the car while the Sheikh and his wife sat in the front. I was never quite sure how the protection team was going to be able to do anything in the event of an incident.
Another key task I had was to liaise with the Sultan of Oman’s Special Force in Dhofar and I spent a number of weeks with them on a series of separate visits. This special force was composed mainly of Jebalis, the mountain people from Dhofar. A number of these Jebalis had been the enemy, or Adoo, during the communist-inspired insurgency against Sultan Qaboos and his father before him. Most of the senior officers in the regiment were former British Special Forces and, subsequently, a few also came from the Rhodesian Special Forces. But the intention was to eventually replace all the British staff with Omanis.
The night skies in the deserts of Oman were stunning. It was reminiscent of the nights I had enjoyed under African skies just the year before, with the reassuring presence of the Southern Cross. I loved any time I could get out in the wilderness. In spite of these exotic travels with KMS, I also spent a lot of time visiting clients in London and various other European cities.
The Chelsea Chindits
It was while I was with KMS that I decided to join 21 SAS, the reserve branch of the SAS, headquartered in the Kings Road in London, and nicknamed the ‘Chelsea Chindits’. I was in good company; Jim J a director at KMS, was a former CO of 21 SAS. I was told by Tony L, the CO, that I would have to pass selection again. This was a bit strange as he had been my squadron commander in 22 SAS. However, this was at a time when Special Forces Headquarters was concerned about the number of SAS personnel leaving the British Army to work on lucrative security contracts and well before the days of ‘Special Forces’ pay.
I spent about a year in 21 SAS as A Squadron commander, and went on annual camp with the regiment to Germany. Even though I was the squadron commander I went out as a standard patrol member in order to learn more about the regiment’s proposed wartime role. In those days 21 and 23 SAS were the corps patrol units (CPU) and in the event of hostilities, or hopefully prior to hostilities, they would dig hides on the north German plains to observe likely Soviet armoured invasion routes. These hides would monitor the Soviet troop movements and direct conventional weapons or tactical nuclear weapons on to key headquarters and communications groups.
On this annual camp we lived in a hole in the ground which we dug out by hand, the traditional way. Conditions were appalling with four people living 6-foot underground, in a T-shaped hole, with only a small plastic pipe to the surface for ventilation. We had plastic bags to crap into and bottles in which to urinate. At one end of the hole was a burning candle. We had to monitor the candle in case it went out which meant the air had become too foul to breathe and a small air pump was then activated. A coal-mine canary would soon have keeled over in one of our hides. One man in the hole observed our area of responsibility through a periscope while the others tried to sleep between shifts or send signal situation reports to the corps headquarters. It was a very, very grim existence indeed!
One of the vulnerabilities of the hides was the very restricted ability to observe what was happening on the surface above the hide. The periscope had limited traverse as its primary aim was to observe only certain arcs. One weekend, prior to the annual camp, we had a presentation by some ‘spooks’ from the intelligence services who had designed a listening device which could be used from our underground hides. With great flair and enthusiasm, they presented their ‘listening device’ to the gathered SAS operators. The device was a giant pair of green human-shaped ears which were to be attached to a tree and the cables would run into the hide. There was a stunned silence from the assembled group and this was followed by gales of laughter. The ‘spooks’ were deeply hurt, gathered up their ‘ears’, and quickly departed.
The personal hygiene of one particular patrol member in our hide left a lot to be desired before we even dug the hole. He was even more fragrant after several days in the hole and, by the second day, the whole team was wearing gas masks! I suspect that in a real war situation, after three weeks in this hole being nuked by the Soviets would have come as welcome relief.
Overall, it was an interesting concept but very much a suicide mission. Nowadays, technology has made such measures obsolete.
This was my first real introduction to working closely with the Territorial Army (TA). They were not generally respected by the regular army who called them STABs (stupid TA bastards) and the TA responded in kind by calling regular army soldiers ARABs (arrogant regular army bastards). However, I was very impressed with the commitment and enthusiasm of the TA soldier. Having worked a full week, often on night shifts, they would parade on a Friday night in their TA Centre and be away on exercise until late Sunday afternoon, before starting work again on a Monday. In many ways this could be much harder graft than the regular army was experiencing.
The TA is managed by permanent cadres from the regular army and this was also the case with the reserve SAS. Officers and senior NCOs from 22 SAS were posted to each TA SAS unit for two to three years. The commanding officer would be either TA or regular with the second-in-command, adjutant and regimental sergeant major all being regulars.
Each sub-unit would also have a small cadre of regular 22 SAS soldiers. The majority of the cadre staff were good value but there were a few who had little time for the TA and spent most of their time and effort maximising the various allowances that attachment to the TA provided. This was a shame as it partially eroded the high regard the reserves had for the regular SAS.
I worked with KMS for some 12 months and then David W asked if I would go to Oman to serve with the Sultan’s Special Forces on a contract for several years. This was an unaccompanied position and it would have meant more long absences from my young family. This was not a situation I wanted at that time and so I decided to see if I could re-enlist in the New Zealand Army instead. I was accepted and once I had completed the formalities in London I received a posting as training officer of the New Zealand SAS. I was very excited about this new challenge and so KMS and I amicably parted company and my family and I prepared to return to New Zealand, which we had left some seven years previously.