Page 127 - Demo

127(a type of local militia) attempted to cross the wadi in the direction of the PDRY and they sustained casualties.3 This triggered a sustained attack by the enemy on the Oman fort. Strikemasters had provided close air support and pre8planned strikes for several days beforehand against enemy troops in Oman territory %u2013 Border Crossing Authority (BCA) had not yet been granted. BCA was eventually granted on 6 May and Strikemasters flew several waves against the PDRY fort and against a variety of targets over the border including gun positions and storage areas. I flew two of these sorties with Fg Off David Milne8Smith. We shared a two8seater Strikemaster and filmed the attacks using his cine camera taking turn about. The contemporary SAF Journal reported, %u2018A few days before the Habrut incident, the 2 i/c Ho Chi Minh Unit surrendered to SAF. On 6 May, his commander was killed on the first SAOF strike on Habrut.%u20194 The Strikemasters were armed with a standard load of 2 %u00d7 540 lb free fall unguided bombs, sixteen SURA rockets and 2 %u00d7 7c62 mm general purpose machine guns. One of the bombs was fused to explode in the air, thus covering a wider area and the second was fused to explode on impact. When approaching the target area, we split into pairs with the lead aircraft carrying out the dive attacks on the main target and the Number Two suppressing the enemy guns. The PDRY fort was sturdily built but one of our bombs hit the walls taking off one side of the main tower. We had been briefed that the SURA Standard load for a Strikemaster was a pair of 540 lb bombs and sixteen SURA rockets but an alternative, as here, was thirty?two RPs.