Page 131 - Demo

131woke many local residents as they turned just above the rooftops over Salalah town and set course eastwards across the sea to Mirbat. En route they discussed weapon options. The squadron had recently carried out loft bombing trials in which the 540lb bombs were released from low level in a 30o climb, allowing the aircraft to escape the bomb debris hemisphere and also avoid flying over the target. The bombs were free fall and unguided (and therefore not very accurate) so would only be suitable for targets away from own troops (like large caves or storage areas). Clearly, loft bombing would not be suitable on the current operation so the option was quickly dismissed. Furthermore, while it is risky firing guns and rockets in very low level flight, dropping unretarded (%u2018slick%u2019 bombs with no retard parachute) in this situation would be suicidal %u2013 the bombs would explode underneath the delivery aircraft. On a routine sortie, Strikemasters would climb to 3000ft or so %u2013 outside small arms range %u2013 to reconnoitre the area and plan the attack. However, because of the low cloud and the obvious urgency of the situation on the ground, the pilots immediately elected to carry out level strafe and rocket attacks below the cloud. This is an extremely dangerous approach from the pilot%u2019s point of view because of the high risk of being hit by one%u2019s own ricochets. As the pilots approached the target area, they tried to contact the BATT on Blue SARBE (UHF) without success. Milne8Smith suggested that they try an alternative, commonly used VHF frequency. Contact was established straight away with Lance Corporal Roger Cole who was located in the BATT house. Cole explained that they were under attack from several directions by numerous enemy who were descending from the mountains. Creak was now running in, seconds away from the target area, closely followed by Milne8Smith. Creak asked Cole %u2018How close is the enemy?%u2019 Cole replied, %u2018One hundred yards and closing%u2019. Cole said it again. Creak acknowledged and immediately attacked the enemy at ultra low level as they were clambering over the barbed wire defences of the northern perimeter. The noise of the jets was deafening and, critically, the attack caused the enemy to hesitate. This was the air strike which prevented the 258pounder gun from being overrun and in all probability the battle from being lost. After the first attack, Cole handed the SARBE radio to Corporal Bob Bennett who directed the remaining air strikes from