Life for UK military personnel, civilian contractors and intelligence staff at Basra Palace between January 2005 and into 2006 marked a critical turning point. During this period—encompassing Operation TELIC 5, 6, and 7 (under 4th Armoured, 12th Mechanised, and 7th Armoured Brigades)—the base transformed from a relatively stable administrative post into an increasingly targeted, fortified … Read more
How To Play Golf In North Korea, really? This is a story that not many people would believe. In a culture that abhorred any form of perceived western or capitalist pastime, especially one that is seen as relatively exclusive, how was this possible? Well, the short answer was that even in North Korea it was … Read more
How to survive 3 years in North Korea as a foreigner is indeed a good question. 3 years is a long time! Some time ago, I was asked about life in North Korea. Who had I upset to have been banished to the “Hermit Kingdom” for 3 years. I imagine they were slightly taken aback … Read more
Albania My First Posting A Bloodstained Surprise. How did this come about? So it was on a cold and windy January morning in 1998 that I arrived at Heathrow airport to catch my early morning flight to Vienna en-route to my final destination Tirana the capital city of Albania. With all the background briefs on … Read more
Albania British Diplomats Shot Conclusion, details the aftermath of the incident where myself and two colleagues from the British Embassy were ambushed on Dajte mountain on the outskirts of Tirana in Albania in 1998 and my two colleagues shot.
So we set off. There was a small convoy of police cars plus our vehicle that slowly snaked back up the mountain. Finally we reached the spot. It was not hard to identify as there was broken glass on the road as well as the long tyre marks we had left behind as we burned rubber taking off making our escape.
Police convoy enroute to ambush spot
The convoy stopped and the police got out of their vehicles and I joined them. Some started to cordon off the road while a number with automatic weapons spread out around the scene in some sort of haphazard search pattern looking for clues or traces of the culprits. After about half an hour just standing around, I asked my Embassy driver, Benny to ask the police if I could leave for the hospital to visit my colleagues. The senior policeman on the scene agreed but said he wanted me to visit police HQ later that day to make an initial statement.
After agreeing to do so and telling them that until further notice Benny would be my official interpreter for the time being, both he and I jumped in our vehicle and headed for the hospital in Tirana. I could see that Benny was nervous. Dealing with all of this was definitely not part of his job description. He was doing a great job not only as a driver putting himself in what might have been a potentially dangerous situation but also with helping out with the police.
About an hour later, after an uneventful trip, we arrived at the main hospital in Tirana. Benny and I went in and were taken to where the Deputy Head of Mission (DHM) and the Management Officer (MO) were being patched up. The doctor explained (via Benny) that the DHM was lucky, the bullet had gone through the fleshy part of her arm without breaking any bones or damaging any nerves. The doctor wanted to keep her in, but she was insistent of going home once the treatment was completed.
Iran Royal Navy Hostages What Really Happened in 2007 is an event that at the time was global news. From my perspective as Her Majesty’s Consul to Iran at the time, it was a hopelessly frustrating and humiliating experience. As a proud maritime nation, it was also not exactly one of our finest moments.
Now I had a saying at the time that whenever the Iranians got twitchy or felt threatened, they would take hostages. They had form for this and in this case they didn’t let me down.
In fact this 2007 incident was not the first time they had detained British military personnel.
In June 2004, three small vessels and eight Royal Navy personnel were detained by Iranian forces after they allegedly entered Iranian waters on the Shatt al-Arab river without permission. At the time, the story was broken when the capture was announced on state-run Iranian television. British officials only stated that they had “lost contact” with the boats, before confirming their detention.
On that occasion the men were later released unharmed, but only after being paraded blindfolded on Iranian TV and made to apologise for their role in the incident. The equipment was not returned.
So now fast forward to Friday March 23rd 2007:
Fifteen British Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel were captured by Iranian authorities, more specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at gunpoint in the Persian Gulf just off the Iraqi coast that morning.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a branch of the Iranian Armed Forces, founded after the Iranian Revolution on 22 April 1979 by order of Ayatollah …
The Royal Navy insisted that they were operating legitimately in Iraqi waters the Iranians said they were in fact in Iranian waters. This inside/outside argument went on for the duration and long after the crisis with both sides providing information showing they were in the right.
North Korea Military Plan Cruel Deceptionis a story that once I had the full details of the aftermath several years later, quite frankly left me speechless and angry.
In early 2004, I was contacted at the embassy in Pyongyang by David Hinton, the brother of an RAF pilot who had been shot down in 1952 over North Korea during the Korean war. He said he had been working for several years trying to garner as much information from a variety of primary sources as to the fate of his brother.
This information he now had in his possession. Most of the details of the shoot down were supplied by eyewitness United States Air Force (USAF) pilots including map coordinates of the site of the crash (which he later sent to me).
He then expressed a wish to be able to visit North Korea and hopefully, finally discover the fate of his brother. Could we help?
The background was that the pilot, Flt Lt Desmond Hinton, who received the Distinguished Flying Cross in World War II for shooting down two Japanese fighters had bailed out of his burning F84e Thunderjet whilst carrying out a strafing mission north east of Pyongyang on 2 January 1952. At this time during the Korean war, Flt Lt Hinton was one of a number of RAF pilots who were attached to and flying with the USAF. Despite enquiries after the war and with no further information as to his fate forthcoming, Flt Lt Hinton was subsequently officially listed as missing in action.
I knew that this was going to be a tall order to try and carry out. The Korean War itself was and still is a huge propaganda tool for the Kim dynasty. So requesting assistance in finding a hated enemy, albeit a fallen one, was perhaps a request too far.
But surprisingly, no.
Permission was granted for me to meet with the North Korean military and at the initial meeting, I provided them with all the research material sent to me by David Hinton and they said they would investigate.
The process of making this project happen, working with the North Korean military, I have covered in a previous post
Albania British Diplomats Ambushed And Shot is Part 1 of a story that occurred in 1998. It was a volatile year in Albania’s recent history. At this time, British diplomats who were posted to a volatile or conflict region received virtually no Hostile Environment Training (HET). It was usually the case you popped into King Charles Street for a quick chat with the relevant desk officer. You would get a quick country brief, then it was off to Heathrow.
There was still no HET in place before my next posting to Kosovo after an eventful year in TiranaAlbania. However, thankfully the FCO had got it’s act together by 2005. Then, just prior to my posting to Iraq, I received a one week HET training course. This was carried out by a private contract firm just outside Hereford.
It was comprehensive and tailored to the area where I would be serving. Perhaps, if we had had this training in 1998 the event that took place below may have turned out differently. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Albania WW2 RAF PilotsSecret Grave Found is a story about a small. isolated Albanian village which kept a deadly secret for almost 50 years during the oppressive, communist regime of Enver Hoxha. The secret they kept lay unmarked and untended in the local village graveyard. So, what was this secret that if it had leaked out could have had potentially deadly consequences for the village?
The story developed thus:
During the long and hot Albanian summer of 1998, the embassy was contacted by the Mayor of Saranda.
Saranda was a medium-sized coastal town and popular holiday resort in the south of the country located near the Greek border and lying directly opposite the island of Corfu. The Mayor said that he had been contacted by a resident of the village of Drovian which was located in the mountains just above Saranda.
Apparently, this villager, his family and the whole village had been living with a secret for decades.
It transpired that during the second World War when the Italians invaded Albania, an RAF fighter plane, during the course of a dogfight, had collided with an Italian machine and the badly burned British RAF pilot had baled out.
He landed just outside the village and despite the tender ministrations of the villagers, had tragically died from his wounds. The villagers then buried him in an unmarked grave in the church grounds as they did not want the Italians to find him.
After the war, with the advent of the brutal and repressive Hoxha communist regime and his denial of the extensive British military aid given to him in terms not only of material but also of British lives in defeating his axis occupiers and liberating his country, the villagers did not dare inform anyone outside the village about the hidden British grave in case they would be taken for collaborators.
AlbaniaBloodshed Avoided At Queen’s Party is a story from Tirana, Albania that came about thus. Sitting out and enduring the lockdown, I spent a lot of time trawling through YouTube videos especially trooping the colour and the celebrations of Queen Elizabeth’s birthday. I love our history and traditions and make no apologies for saying so. As a result, the Queen has always been a significant figure in our lives.
Therefore, every year, on the occasion of the Queen’s official birthday, all British embassies and Posts throughout the world organise their own Queen’s birthday celebration, honouring the legacy of the Queen.
So, this took me back to a time and place when the apparently straightforward task of arranging an event of this magnitude can often be fraught with uncertainty and a whiff of danger, especially abroad, particularly when it involves the Queen.
It was the first week in June 1998 in Tirana, where the focus then was on the upcoming Queen’s Birthday Party, (QBP) which I had been told I was to organise.
Although I took the embassy lead with the organisation and logistics, all QBP’s are very much a team effort, as everyone works together to honour the Queen.
Given the importance of this event, all staff in the embassy, from drivers right up to the Ambassador, have a role to play in putting together this, our showcase social occasion of the year. I just had to pull all the strands together and come up with a detailed final plan that respects the significance of the Queen.
Therefore my chief role as lead was to coordinate all the various elements, make sure everyone knew exactly what they were expected to do, liaise with the venue for catering and entertainment and of course assist with the compilation of the all-important guest list.
Planning progressed well. Perhaps a little too well. When the great day arrived we were all in position, well prepared and briefed as to what our role would be during the two-hour long event celebrating the Queen. The Tirana International hotel had pulled out all the stops and really done a splendid job. Flower baskets abounded, the food was laid out on silver platters buffet style along the terrace, spotlessly white-jacketed waiters were primed and ready to mingle and dispense drinks.
For background, I had even hired a small classical musical quartet as well as a solo lady harpist, to create an elegant atmosphere befitting the Queen’s celebration.
For an event such as this, protocol dictated that as well as other foreign diplomats and notables, we invite the heads of the two main political parties, who were the President of Albania from the current governing party and his chief political rival from the opposition party, who just so happened to be the former President of Albania.
There was bad history between both men, they despised each other and there had been outbreaks of serious violence and bloodshed between their supporters in the recent past, which made the Queen’s event all the more delicate.
Therefore, given this mutual loathing, we didn’t expect either to turn up. For us, the best-case scenario would have been both sending lower-level minions for appearances sake or, better still, nobody from either party showing up at the Queen’s celebration.
Therefore, based on this presumption, I catered for one hundred official guests. No RSVP was received from either current or former President, therefore it was assumed that they would not be coming. Even last minute phone calls to their respective offices evoked non-committal answers.
Well, I was wrong.
The great day arrives, everything and everyone is in place. First to turn up was the incumbent President of Albania with a whole host of bodyguards, drivers and associated hangers-on. The Ambassador, thinking that the President was not coming was initially caught on the hop, but thinking fast on his feet announced that he was honoured and thrilled that the President had decided to accept our invitation to the Queen’s event.
I was then tasked with ushering him and his party to a shady spot on one side of the harpist who began to look extremely nervous at being so near to the President but more so I think because of his bodyguards, all black leather jackets and bulges under their armpits.
Not long after, more official guests arrived. But what was this?
I could not believe it. The President’s chief political rival had also decided to accept our invitation to the Queen’s Party. So in he came, with even more bodyguards, drivers and associated hangers-on. Why had he come? He must have known that the President would be coming. Was this an excuse for some form of confrontation?
The by now clearly rattled Ambassador greeted the former President announcing again how honoured and thrilled he was that he had decided to accept our invitation. At this stage of the proceedings I was trying to merge into the background fearing the worst, but (bugger) the Ambassador spotted me and motioned for me to take charge of the party and find them a suitable spot. Well, the only free space large enough was on the other side of where the lady harpist was playing and so I directed the former President and his entourage there.
The poor harpist.
I had no idea what Albania piece she was playing but with two warring factions on either side of her the pace of her playing definitely increased in tempo and volume. Also, at that stage, I really did not think that a harp would be a sturdy enough barrier if the two factions decided to have a go at each other.
However, my main concern at this stage was not about confrontation, it was the catering arrangements. I had only catered for one hundred and now with the recent, unexpected arrivals it looked to be about one hundred and fifty. Horror of horrors, it now appeared as if we might run out of food and drink at an early stage, a cardinal sin of the first magnitude at a QBP celebrating the Queen.
If so, I was in trouble. If this was not bad enough, we had two factions who would at the drop of a hat be at each others throats, a twitchy harpist who was literally going into overdrive with the speed of her playing and an Ambassador who seemed to be hyperventilating under an awning in the corner with a very shaky large G&T.
Things were definitely taking a turn for the worse. I could see my career ending before it started. I was the one put in charge, I had arranged all of this for the Queen’s Party. If things went wrong it was down to me.
The uneasy atmosphere persisted as it came time for the speeches (very short thankfully), which both the Ambassador and the President managed to deliver without incident or interruption. On conclusion of the speeches, the two national anthems were played followed soon after with the orderly departure of the President and his party.
A few minutes later, having been advised that the President’s convoy of cars had left the hotel and sped off into the distance, the former President and his entourage also left. Both parties fortunately (for me) had not touched any of the food instead limiting themselves to soft drinks or iced water at the Queen’s celebration.
My relief was palpable. It had turned out eventually to be a good QBP given the uncomfortable circumstances and unexpected guests. At least the Ambassador who had by now recovered his composure, was content with the proceedings which was the main thing. This was a good, steep learning curve for me as I was destined to organise a number of QBPs in the future in various locations and under some pretty extreme constraints, all in honour of the Queen.
So, valuable lesson learned, never take anything for granted, especially when it involves the Queen.
